


Just For Now

by complicationstoo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Enemies to Lovers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension, that eventually gets resolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 31,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26760088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/complicationstoo/pseuds/complicationstoo
Summary: Tony and Steve have never gotten along, but when Tony lies to his mom about bringing his boyfriend to his cousin's wedding, he needs someone to play the part. Lucky for him, Steve agrees, and the two might just get a little more than they anticipated out of it.
Relationships: Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 138
Kudos: 468





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for clicking on this one! Let me know what you think :)
> 
> Title comes from the song Just For Now by Maren Morris, which has absolutely nothing to do with this fic but is an amazing song nonetheless.

It starts the way most things do in Tony’s life: a complete accident brought on by his own momentary stupidity. He doesn’t mean to lie to his mother. Well, he does, but he meant for the lie to be more convincing and less dependent on maintaining an elaborate ruse, and he definitely didn’t mean to drag Steve down with him.

“You need me to do what?” Steve frowns, setting down his charcoal pencil. There’s a smear of it on his forehead from where he must have been running his hand through his hair while working. Tony almost wants to reach out and wipe it away with his thumb, but they aren’t those kind of friends. They’re really not friends at all.

“I need you to come with me to Malibu for a week and pretend to be my boyfriend.”

The frown only increases, and Tony cracks a joke to alleviate some of the tension, “You know if you keep making that face it’s going to freeze like that.”

Steve, predictably, huffs in response, “Why do you need me to do this?”

“Because my cousin is getting married, and my mom kept going on and on about how lovely her fiancé is and how ‘wouldn’t it just be so lovely if you had someone like that, bambino?’” Tony does a poor imitation of his mom’s voice as he paces around the small space of Steve’s one-bedroom apartment. “She just wouldn’t stop and then she started talking about setting me up with people, and apparently Marian from her book club has a son that I definitely never want to meet. I just thought it would be easier if I told her I was already seeing someone.”

Steve is wearing his judgmental face now, which doesn’t bode well for him. “I still don’t see why that means I have to go to Malibu with you.”

Tony rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, “Because she got really excited about the idea of me having someone, and I couldn’t disappoint her after that, so I promised to bring my boyfriend to the wedding with me.”

“And why did you choose me to be your fake boyfriend?” Steve asks. “We barely know each other.”

“She already met Bucky when we were dating, so he’s out. Clint’s too much of a disaster to pull this off, and Bruce hates lying.”

Steve raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms over his chest. Tony politely doesn’t comment on the way that makes his muscles bulge attractively; he made that mistake once before, and Steve called him a superficial ass. In Steve’s defense, he did say it while stroking said muscles. In Tony’s, he was pretty drunk at the time. 

“Why do you think I’ll be able to pull it off any better than Clint would?”

Tony laughs, “Is that a serious question?”

The frown returns, “You should be nicer to Clint.”

“I am nice to Clint,” Tony says. “It’s not our fault you don’t understand our jokes.”

Steve rolls his eyes and drops his arms back down, “Did you already tell her my name?”

“Not yet. I wasn’t sure you’d say yes, and it seemed like a hassle to find some other guy named Steve if you didn’t,” Tony says, then he pauses to contemplate it. “I guess I could stake out a Starbucks, flirt with the first Steve I find, convince him to fall in love with me, then take him to California. He’ll probably be devastated when I break up with him, though. I’m very hard to get over.”

“Please don’t con an innocent man to get out of telling your mom the truth,” Steve says, looking a touch horrified, as if he truly believes Tony would do that.

Tony grins, “So you’re saying yes?” 

Steve sighs heavily, sitting down on the edge of the couch and running his hands down his face. He’s being a little overdramatic, if you ask Tony. It’s a free vacation to Malibu, not a death sentence. 

“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.”

“What?” It’s Tony’s turn to frown. 

“There’s going to be rules,” Steve says. “I’m not making shit up on the spot. We’re establishing a story, and we’re sticking to it.”

Steve gets up and retrieves a pad of paper and a pen. Tony looks over his shoulder as he writes the number one. 

“Oh my God, you’re actually writing them down. Wow, okay.” Tony claps his hands together and joins Steve on the couch. 

After the number one, Steve writes, “Stick to the story. No ad libbing.” He underlines that last part twice with a pointed look at Tony.

For the second one, he puts, “Keep physical touch to a minimum.”

“That’s going to be a little hard,” Tony argues. “We’re supposed to be a couple in love at a romantic occasion. It’s weird if I don’t touch you.

“It says minimum, not none,” Steve retorts. He points his pen at Tony. “But I swear to God if at any point you touch my ass, you’re losing that hand.”

Tony raises his hands in surrender, “Alright, damn, no ass grabbing. Got it.” 

“You can kiss me if you have to, but I want a warning first.”

“How am I supposed to warn you in public?”

Steve shrugs, “Squeeze my wrist.”

He moves onto the third rule, writing, “Fake dating occurs only in public.”

“That’s a little obvious, don’t you think?” Steve ignores him, so he jokingly says, “Make rule number four ‘don’t fall in love.’”

Steve glares, “That’s really not going to be a problem.”

“You know, you’re really sucking all the fun out of lying to my relatives.”

“It’s not supposed to be fun.”

“Then why are you even doing this?” Tony asks, slightly exasperated. He’s debating calling the whole thing off and just asking Clint, even if Clint would spend the whole time finding unique ways to embarrass him. 

“Because you need help, so I’m helping.”

“That’s it?” Tony is dubious. People never help for the sake of helping, and he was fully prepared to have to bribe Steve into this if he said no.

“That’s it,” Steve confirms. 

“You don’t even like me.”

Steve rolls his eyes yet again and tosses the pen and paper down on the coffee table. “I don’t have to like you to help you.”

Tony eyes him with suspicion for a while longer, as if the truth will reveal itself if he stares long enough. Steve looks back at him with annoyance, but he doesn’t seem to be lying. 

“Okay, so we’re doing this,” he finally says, slapping his hands on his thighs. 

Steve sounds less enthusiastic when he repeats, “We’re doing it.”

Tony lounges back on the couch and puts his feet up on the coffee table, but Steve’s harsh look makes him put them back down on the floor. 

“So what’s the story?” Tony asks, tapping his fingers against the arm of the couch. “You’re a photographer, right? We could have met at a photoshoot. I could be a model, you know.”

Steve snorts, and Tony thinks,  _ rude.  _

“You were a hooker that I hired -”

Steve claps his hand over Tony’s mouth before he can get the rest of it out. “First of all, if either of us was the hooker in a  _ Pretty Woman  _ scenario, it would be you. Second, no to any fake stories. We’ll just use the real one.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, “The real story kind of gives away the secret, wouldn’t you say?”

“We’ll tell people that Bucky introduced us, which he did. Everyone knows you’re still friends. It’s not that hard to believe he would set you up with someone.”

Tony sighs, “If you insist on making the story boring, fine.”

“It’s not boring. It’s easy to remember,” Steve argues. “And we should each make a list of things we need to know about each other, just in case your family has questions.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tony laughs. “I’m allergic to macadamia nuts, and I don’t like peas. They taste like dirt.”

“I meant we should write them down.”

“Oh, yeah, will do.”

“Okay, good,” Steve nods a few too many times like he’s the one that needs the convincing instead of Tony. 

“Thank you for doing this,” Tony says sincerely, putting his hand on Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve gives him a look that he can’t quite read, then says, “You’re welcome.”

They seem to have reached the end of the conversation, so Tony stands from the couch. Steve does the same, returning to his easel by the window while Tony walks towards the door. 

Before he can leave, Steve calls out, “Oh, hey, how the hell did you even get here? I know that door was locked.”

Tony shrugs, “Bucky has a key.”

“You stole Bucky’s key?”

“Nah, I actually picked the lock,” Tony grins at Steve’s distraught face, walking backwards through the door. “You should really use the deadbolt. Bye, Steve!”


	2. Chapter 2

“Okay, so, tell me about yourself,” Steve says immediately after the waiter takes their order.

Tony laughs into his glass of red wine, “Is that how you start all of your dates?”

“This isn’t a date.”

Technically, it’s not, but it almost is. They’re at a moderately high-end restaurant, they’re both dressed in nice clothes, and they’re trying to get to know each other. It would be a date by anyone’s standards, if it wasn’t for the pesky little detail that it’s all pretend.

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything that might come up with your family.”

It’s vague and not exactly helpful, so Tony shrugs, “They honestly don’t know that much about me to begin with. Natasha’s the only one who might know if you lie about something, but she’ll be a little busy. You know, being the bride and all.”

Steve nods and suggests, “Maybe we should start there, then. Give me a rundown of your family.”

“Alright, sure. First thing you might want to know is that Nat’s not technically my cousin. Her mom was best friends with my mom back in the day, so I used to call her mom my aunt and vice versa. I’m telling you this because it might come up that we made out once in college.”

Steve makes a scrunched up face at that, then asks, “Why would that come up? Also, that's disgusting.”

“I’m not saying it would, but it could. Nat spills secrets like crazy when she’s drunk. And yeah, it kind of was."

“Okay. If she’s not actually your cousin, we’re not really lying to your whole family? It’s just your mom that will be there?”

“So here’s the thing,” Tony starts, and Steve sighs already. “At the wedding, yes. Just my mom and my cousin who isn’t really my cousin.”

“What about your aunt who isn’t really your aunt?”

Tony shakes his head, “She died about ten years ago.”

“Oh,” Steve says, looking uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”

Tony decides to save him from the discomfort by barrelling right along, “The thing is, though, that my father lives in Malibu, and my mom thought it would be a good idea to have some sort of fucked up family dinner while we’re there. So it’ll be you, me, and my divorced parents who haven’t been in the same room as each other in fifteen years.”

“I thought your dad was dead,” Steve frowns.

“What? Who told you that?”

“Bucky.”

Tony mentally scans every conversation he can remember having with Bucky on the subject. He doesn’t remember telling him that his father was dead, though it might have been easy to misinterpret a few of the things he said on the subject, especially because he said so little. Maybe he should’ve been clearer when he used the phrase ‘dead to me.’

“Well, he’s very much alive and very much an asshole.” 

“So why are we having dinner with them?”

“Because my mom has a guilt complex a mile wide,” Tony sighs, leaning back in his chair and running his hand through his hair. “I’m pretty sure she thinks it’s her fault that I haven’t talked to my father since they got divorced. We moved here when I was nine, and he never visited or called or anything. I guess one awkward family dinner is supposed to fix it.”

“He abandoned you?” 

Steve’s question and the edge of anger in his voice takes him by surprise. Tony’s the uncomfortable one now as he says, “Abandoned might be a little strong. Anyway, it's fine. It's just one horrible night, and then we'll go back to never speaking.”

“Okay,” Steve says, though it seems anything but. “I should probably know some things about you for that, right?”

“Alright,” Tony agrees. “I’m not really sure what you know already and what you don’t.”

“Let’s just assume I know nothing, because apparently information from Buck can’t be trusted.”

“Apparently not,” Tony laughs. He takes a sip of his wine, and then jumps into a long-winded recap of the last few years of his life. “Okay, so, I went to MIT for college at fifteen, got a degree in physics at eighteen, a Master’s at twenty. I moved back to New York to work on my physics PhD after that, and now I’m going for my second in mechanical engineering. Don’t ask me what I’m doing when I’m done with that, because I don’t know.” 

Steve gapes for a moment, but then he seems to remember he doesn't allow himself to like anything about Tony and recovers. “So Bucky wasn’t exaggerating when he called you a genius.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Tony smiles. 

“You get yourself into an extraordinary amount of stupid situations for an actual genius,” Steve says in a tone that’s somewhere between teasing and serious. “You’ll have to forgive me for thinking he was blinded by love when he said that.”

Tony laughs again, “I don’t think there was ever any love to be blinded by, but alright.” 

“There wasn’t?” Steve frowns. “That wasn’t the impression I was under.”

“Well, as one of the two people directly involved in the situation, I can tell you that your impression was definitely wrong. We were only together for a couple of months.”

“I know, but…” Steve trails off. When he starts again, it’s back to business. “How long are we saying we’ve been dating for, by the way?”

“I told my mom that it had been a few months, so maybe four months?”

Steve nods slowly, “Is it serious? I mean, that’s probably your longest relationship, right?”

“Okay, ignoring how offensive that was. No, it’s not my longest, and yes, we should say it’s serious.”

“How serious?”

Tony waves his hand through the air, “I don’t know. We’re in love, it’s going well. We don’t really need anything more than that.”

“Wait, how old are you?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s probably something you should know. Twenty four. You?”

“Twenty seven.”

Tony realizes then that he knows pretty much nothing about Steve. His knowledge includes only what Bucky has shared about him, but stories from when they were in middle school won’t be of much use. Basically all he really knows is that Steve came back from his last tour in the army last year and does photography now. It isn’t much for someone he’s been supposedly dating for four months. 

“Alright, your turn. What do I need to know about you? Besides the army thing and the photography thing.”

Steve shrugs, “There isn’t much else to know.”

“Helpful.”

The waiter arrives with their entrees, and the conversation comes to a stop for a while as they eat. It’s the longest they’ve been alone together, and it’s definitely uncomfortable. They talk idly about nothing of importance - the Yankees season, which Tony knows just enough about to fake his way through, Bucky’s latest cooking attempts, Bruce’s new girlfriend. Nothing that would start an argument, but nothing interesting, either.

The whole time Tony wonders why it is that they don’t know each other better. Steve has been Bucky’s best friend since the second grade, and they joined the army together at eighteen. Tony is probably Bucky’s closest friend besides Steve. He’s known Bucky for almost three years now and has been living with him for two, when Tony’s roommate moved out at the same time Bucky was looking for a new place. Other than their brief and regretful attempt at a relationship, he’s gotten along better with Bucky than just about anyone else. Rhodey not included, of course. By all means he and Steve should be closer than they are. 

It’s not for a lack of trying on Bucky’s part. Tony knows that he wanted them to become friends, but it didn’t go that way. Steve hasn’t liked him since the beginning, and Tony doesn’t quite know how to fix it, especially when he doesn’t know the issue that caused it. Everything he does just seems to make it worse. 

It’s the reason that at the end of dinner, as they’re walking down the sidewalk together, he asks again, “Seriously, though, why are you doing this?”

“I already told you. You needed help, I’m helping.”

Steve’s hands are in the pockets of his leather jacket, and he’s put almost a foot of space between them. 

“Yeah, I know, but what do you care if I need help?”

“Sometimes people just do things because it’s the right thing to do,” Steve says. A little unnecessarily pointed, Tony thinks. “You could try it.”

Tony laughs, “Sure, because it’s the right thing to help someone lie to their mother.”

“It’s the right thing to help someone get out of a shitty situation.” The words come out harsh, with the implied  _ not that you would know  _ hanging in the air at the end. 

"You know you don't have to be an ass about it, right?" Tony questions.

"You know what they say. Takes one to know one."

Tony remembers now why they aren’t closer, other than the fact that Steve doesn’t like him. He can’t stand Steve for longer than it takes for him to open his mouth and climb up on his high horse.

But he still needs a favor, he reminds himself. So he bites his tongue, and wouldn’t Pepper be so proud of that? She’s the one who always says he needs to learn when the fight isn’t worth having. He stays quiet until they reach the corner where Steve needs to go left and he has to go right. 

They pause only for a moment, just long enough for Tony to say, “Guess I’ll see you at the airport,” and for Steve to reply, “Try to show up on time.”

Bucky is on the couch when he walks into their apartment, feet up on the coffee table and a carton of chinese takeout on his lap. Not looking up from the television, he asks, “How was your date with Steve?”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Fine, how was your meeting to discuss all the ways you’re going to lie to your mother?”

Tony flops down on the couch and steals the fork from Bucky’s hand to shovel a large scoop of noodles into his mouth. “Steve sucks.”

Bucky takes the fork back, looking very unimpressed by Tony’s thievery. “What did you say to him?”

“Why do people always assume I’m the problem?” Tony questions, throwing his hands in the air.

“Because it’s the most likely scenario.”

“It is not,” Tony defends. “I was perfectly nice to him, and he insulted me like thirty times.”

It’s an exaggeration. There were maybe only two or three actual insults, and the rest of the time was actually fine, but the last few minutes of it put a sour taste in his mouth. 

Bucky wisely doesn’t reply to that. He learned a while ago not to put himself between Steve and Tony’s arguments. 

Instead, he offers Tony the remote and doesn’t complain when Tony puts on a show he doesn’t like. 

After a half hour of watching terrible reality shows, Tony turns his head to look at Bucky and asks, “Why does he hate me?”

Bucky sighs, “He doesn’t hate you.”

“Okay, fine, why doesn’t he like me? I’m very likable.” Bucky laughs, so Tony punches his arm. “I am, asshole.”

"Look, I'm not really sure why you two can't seem to get along for more than five minutes. If I knew, we'd all be fine by now, but I don't," Bucky says. "What I do know is that it will be an absolute miracle if both of you make it back from California alive."

Tony takes the now empty takeout container out of Bucky's lap and puts his head there instead, spreading his legs out on the space that remains on the couch. Bucky runs his hand through Tony’s hair automatically, because he’s an absolute saint. 

"I still don't get why he's even bothering with this. He keeps saying it's the right thing to do, but what does he care if my mom is sad I lied to her."

He feels Bucky shrug. "Stevie's got a weird sense of right and wrong. Honestly, if you told him you're doing it to make your mom happy, that's probably the reason for him, too."

"He doesn't even know her."

"He doesn't need to," Bucky says. "He's already decided it's the right thing, because you're doing it for a decent reason, so he's gonna help."

"That's fucking stupid," Tony decides.

Bucky laughs and teases, "Well, maybe he just wants to spend time with you."

"Maybe he thinks it's easier to bury a body in California."

"Oh, that could be it."

Tony flicks Bucky’s wrist with his finger, so Bucky pulls his hair. Neither of them ever claimed to be mature. 

“If I stab him, will you be mad at me?”

“Yes.”

Tony sighs dramatically, “Fine, I won’t stab him. But I make no promises about injuries caused out of self-defense.”

Bucky shakes his head, but his smile is fond. “Hey, you never know, you might actually become friends after this.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony laughs. “That’s not happening.”


	3. Chapter 3

Tony shows up at the airport three hours early to spite Steve, only to find that Steve’s already waiting in the terminal when he gets there. He regrets it immediately when he realizes that his earliness means he’ll have to spend nine straight hours next to Steve instead of just the six for the flight itself.

After five minutes of trying to start a conversation to no avail, he gives up and wanders the airport instead. He gets coffee and drinks it from a bench while people watching, browses through the overpriced snacks at the convenience stores and buys a few too many, flips through the magazines at the newsstands, which results in him learning way more about celebrity couples than he needed. 

Eventually he runs out of distractions and brings his armful of snacks back with him to his seat next to Steve. He holds out a bag of freeze dried apple slices and offers it to Steve. “Want a snack?”

Steve eyes them suspiciously, prompting Tony to roll his eyes and say, “The bag is sealed. I couldn’t have possibly poisoned them.”

He takes the bag, though it still seems reluctant. Opening it, he pops a slice in his mouth and says, “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Steve goes back to the book he was reading, which seems to be some fantasy novel judging from the elf-looking thing on the cover, while Tony stares off into space. 

A minute later, Steve says, “Stop fidgeting so much. You’re shaking the whole row.”

“Oh, sorry.”

He stops the restless tapping of his foot, which he didn’t even realize he was doing in the first place. His hands are itching for something to fiddle with, and his brain is torturing him by supplying all the things he could be doing in his lab right now. 

His leg starts to jiggle again, but a sharp glare from Steve stops it. Deciding he needs a new distraction, he pulls out his phone. 

He clicks through every social media app he has, playing catch up on all the posts from the last month. Eventually he ends up on Tinder, because why not? What else is there to do in an airport?

He rejects most of the profiles no matter how good they are, because he isn’t actually interested in matching with someone. His only interest is in killing time by judging people. 

Brian is looking for someone who “doesn’t play games and wants something serious.” Tony rolls his eyes hard enough to hurt. 

Jessica very clearly stole her caption from some fake internet poet. Next. 

“What was wrong with her?”

Tony jumps at the sudden comment from Steve, who smirks at his reaction. “Did you read her caption? It was terrible.”

“It seemed alright to me,” Steve shrugs. 

“A caption is supposed to make you want to swipe right, not want to gag from the sheer cheesiness of it.”

Steve raises an eyebrow, “Alright, how’s this one, then?”

Tony looks back at his phone to see Ryan. He swipes through a couple of pictures, then reads the caption. “It’s not too bad, actually. Not the most creative, but it’s informative, at least.”

Tony swipes left.

“Then why did you reject him?”

“Just because it’s informative doesn’t mean I liked the information, Steve.”

The next is Patrick, who Tony rejects in all of five seconds, but he stays on it for longer to let Steve finish reading the caption. 

“Okay, even I know that one is bad,” Steve says. He leans over and swipes left for him, making Tony laugh. 

It’s the best they’ve gotten along in quite a long time, so Tony keeps it going. They swipe through a ton of profiles, laughing over the really bad ones and debating the merits of quite a few others. He learns more about Steve doing this than he has in the full year they’ve known each other. Like the fact that Steve thinks people with dogs in their pictures are automatically more trustworthy, and he never rejects anyone just based on the pictures. It’s endearing, actually, to learn these little things about him. 

Somehow they manage to make it through the full hour they have left before boarding without any arguments, so it only makes sense that their luck will run out on the plane. 

It starts over the armrest, which Tony is willing to admit is stupid. Steve isn’t exactly wrong to say it’s his, but he does it by knocking Tony’s elbow off of it, and Tony promptly unlearns the “pick your battles” lesson from Pepper. 

He pushes back, and Steve huffs. Tony gives him his best innocent look, which has the opposite effect. Steve knocks his arm off again, and then it becomes a shoving match. 

“Are you going to continue to be this childish the whole trip?” Steve asks. 

“Probably.”

Steve looks him directly in the eye as he shoves his elbow off for the last time. Tony lets him have it after that, only because it was actually kind of funny. 

It takes all of five minutes for him to manage to piss Steve off again, though it isn’t on purpose this time. 

“You’re supposed to turn your phone off,” Steve says. 

“And I will when the plane is actually moving.”

“They already said to turn off electronic devices.”

Tony looks over at him, wondering how serious he is. It turns out the answer is very. “Alright, fine, I’ll put on airplane mode. Are you happy now?”

Steve doesn’t answer, except to roll his eyes. And Tony’s supposed to be the childish one somehow?

When the plane starts to move, Tony notices the way Steve grips the armrest a little too tight, leaving indents in the fabric with his fingertips. During the takeoff, Steve bites the pad of his thumb, and he’s blinking a little too quickly.

“Are you scared of flying?” Tony asks, confused. 

It must read as judgmental, because Steve definitely takes it that way. “I’m fine,” he snaps. “I’m not scared of flying.”

Tony holds up his hands, “Hey, not judging. Just asking. Seems like something you’d mention to the person you’re flying with, though.”

“Well, I’m not scared, so it doesn’t matter.”

Tony doesn’t press the issue, figuring it won’t get him anywhere, and Steve relaxes once the plane reaches cruising altitude. He’s no longer trying to crush the armrest with his hand, and his jaw has unclenched. 

Steve surprises him by offering up the information on his own. “I had a bad experience in the army once. It’s the kind of thing that’s hard to forget.”

Tony jerks his head so quickly to look at him that he could have given himself whiplash, but Steve is looking away. 

“Like I said, no judgment here.”

That gets Steve to turn, and he meets Tony’s eyes for a few seconds before he nods. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Steve, of all things, laughs. “Yeah, I guess you didn’t.”

“You can, if you change your mind,” Tony says. “But I’m not going to ask, and you don’t have to tell. Oh, wait, that sounds kinda bad, doesn’t it? Like don’t ask, don’t tell. I didn’t really think that one through.”

“That’s kind of your thing, right? Not thinking things through,” Steve says, and Tony is prepared to start up another argument before he gets a good read on Steve’s facial expression. His smile is just barely there, nothing more than a raised corner of his mouth, but it’s enough to let Tony know that it was only a joke. A joke at his expense, but a joke nonetheless.

“Yeah,” Tony sighs. “I suppose it is.”

Silence settles between them, and though it isn’t quite as uncomfortable as Tony thought it would be, it’s still more awkward than Tony would like. Tony racks his brain for something, anything, to talk about. 

Steve, surprising him once again, does it for him. “So I asked Bucky why he told me your dad was dead.”

“Oh, really? What did he say?”

“He said that you told him that he hasn’t been around in years, and he thought that meant he was dead.”

“That’s an interesting interpretation,” Tony laughs. “It’s kind of sweet that he assumes that the only reason fathers aren’t around is because of death, though.” 

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Steve joins him in laughter. He runs his hand through his hair as he sobers back up. “But he’s really got no reason to. Mine left when I was kid, and he’s always known that.” 

“I am also not asking you to talk about that if you don’t want to.”

Steve gives him a small smile, “Thanks, but there’s not much to share there. I was really young. I don’t remember him much at all.”

“I don’t really remember mine, either,” Tony says. “I mean, I was nine, so I remember some things, but we didn’t really spend any time together before the divorce. He worked a lot, went on business trips all the time, and when he was home, he was usually in his office anyway. I honestly don’t know what he’s going to be like when I see him again.”

“Do you want to see him again?”

Tony shrugs, “A part of me is curious, sure. But from what I do remember he wasn’t a very good person. He yelled a lot, always treated my mom and me like we were inconveniences, liked to make everyone around him feel small. I don’t think people are capable of changing enough to make any of that really go away.

“Really I’m just trying not to get my hopes up. I figure if I go in with low expectations, I can’t be disappointed when he turns out to be exactly the same as I remember.” 

Steve sits with that information for a while, then asks, “Did you know about the dinner when you asked me to be your wedding date?”

“No,” Tony shakes his head. “She set that up later. I don’t think I would have roped you into this if I had known about it. No one should have to witness the trainwreck that this is gonna be.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I guarantee the shouting will begin before we even get to the main course. The only actual question is who it’ll be between.” 

“So what do you want my role to be?” Steve asks. 

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what kind of boyfriend am I? Am I supposed to defend your honor? Or am I supposed to just kind of let it happen?”

Tony snorts, “From what I hear about you from Bucky, you’ve never once just let something happen. I’d be amazed if you knew how.”

“Bucky exaggerates.”

“Does he now?” Tony questions, raising an eyebrow. “So that time in the fourth grade with the boy that was picking on his little sister?”

“He made her cry,” Steve defends. 

“And that time when someone made fun of Bucky’s shoes? Or that other time when some kid broke another kid’s glasses? Or what about when -”

“Alright, alright. I see your point,” Steve laughs. “Why do you even know all these stories, anyway?”

“Bucky talked about you a lot when we first met. Every single story from when he was younger had you in it. As for why I remember them, I’ve just got a really good memory, and I liked the stories.”

“I bet he downplayed his role in them, though. He’ll never admit that he got into just as many fights as I did.”

“According to him, you’re a reckless idiot with no self-preservation skills, and he provided back up when you needed it,” Tony says. “Are you telling me that’s not the case?”

Steve shakes his head with a smile, “What a fucking liar.”

“Oh, please tell me what actually happened,” Tony grins. 

“He started just as many of those fights as I did. Like that one with the broken glasses? It happened during recess, and I was over on the bench minding my own business when Bucky threw the first punch. He already had a bloody nose by the time I got there. I did take the fall for him with the principal, though, because his mom would have been even more pissed if she knew he started it,” Steve says, chuckling at the memory.

“Wow, that’s really not how he tells it. In fact, if I remember correctly, he tells that story in complete reverse with him as the one who was minding his own business when he got dragged into the fight.”

“Nope, definitely not what happened. He had to get three stitches, and his mom took away his Gameboy.”

Tony laughs, “Okay, now I’m wondering how many of his other stories are lies. Was he even the one that won that giant bear at the state fair or was that you all along?”

“The pink one? That was actually him,” Steve says. “I can tell you the real version of all of the stories, though. If you’re interested, that is?”

Tony smiles, “Sounds like the perfect way to kill the next five hours.”


	4. Chapter 4

They touch down in Los Angeles in the evening and head straight for the hotel. His mom arrived two days ago and is waiting for them in the lobby when they get there. He wasn’t quite prepared for that, and he doesn't have enough time to warn Steve before she’s coming over to them with a wide smile. 

All he gets out is, “Oh, shit,” before he’s being wrapped in a tight hug that squeezes the breath out of his lungs. 

“Hey, mom,” he says, a little too loud for Steve’s benefit, who is looking at them with a mix of confusion and what might be panic. 

Steve is the next to be subjected to her death grip, and he freezes for a second before hugging her back. Tony mouths an apology to him while Maria is still turned away, praying that Steve will understand somehow that he didn’t mean to blindside him like this. 

“It’s lovely to meet you, Steve,” she says, and she sounds so genuine that it makes Tony feel a wave of guilt. 

“It’s nice to meet you, too, ma’am.”

Maria pulls back, but leaves one hand on Steve’s arm and puts the other on Tony’s. She looks back and forth between the two of them, her smile never wavering once. 

“Hey, mom,” he says again, “I didn’t expect to see you already.”

She drops her hands and loops her arm through Tony’s. He barely has time to grab for the handle of his luggage before she’s guiding them through the lobby. “Well, I knew you’d be getting in just in time for dinner, so I thought it would be nice if we all ate together.”

Tony sees the panic reemerge on Steve’s face and tries to tell her that they already have plans just to get them out of it, but she barrels on as they get in the elevator, “Here’s your key, sweetheart. I already checked you in. You’re in 625. I couldn’t get us on the same floor, but this’ll just have to do.”

“Oh, thanks,” Tony says, forcing some level of sincerity into his voice. “Steve and I -”

“The reservation is for seven, so that should leave you both with enough time to get changed and freshen up. We’ll meet back in the lobby at six thirty, and Happy will drive us. How does that sound?”

Tony glances at Steve and is ready to once again say no, but before he can, Steve says, “That sounds wonderful, ma’am. Thank you for arranging it.”

Maria laughs, the sound bright and lilting. “Please, call me Maria. I’ll see you both downstairs in just a bit.” 

The elevator doors open to what is presumably their floor, and Maria ushers them off. Steve and Tony both stare at them as they close. 

Steve is the first to speak. 

“What the hell just happened?”

“I have no clue,” Tony says, still in a state of shock. “It took Pepper two years to get to call her Maria. She still won’t let Bucky do it.”

Steve turns to look at him, “So that’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah,” Tony says slowly. For their predicament, sure. It will make everything easier if his mom likes Steve. She’ll be less likely to see through the lie, too focused on getting to know Steve to notice how little they actually know each other. But for the future, when he has to eventually lie and say they broke up, it will be that much worse.

“Is it weird that I really like that I got first name privileges before Bucky did?” Steve asks as they walk down the hall. 

Tony laughs, “Yeah, it’s such a brag that a middle aged woman likes you more than your friend.”

“Hey, being liked by a mom is a good thing,” Steve says. “You wouldn’t know, because mothers probably hate you.”

“You know what, I can’t even get offended, because it’s true. The only mom that’s ever liked me is Rhodey’s.”

“Who’s Rhodey?” Steve asks. 

“James Rhodes is my best friend in the world. We were roommates at MIT, and I call him Rhodey because James is a stupid name,” Tony says. “And yes, I also said that to Bucky when I met him. Although Bucky’s probably worse than James was to begin with, but I hear that’s your fault.”

Steve grins, “What can I say, I also thought James was a stupid name.”

They find their room, and Tony unlocks the door. It opens up to a small living room with a loveseat and television, and the bathroom off to their right. The wallpaper is all kinds of gaudy, brown with maroon swirls, and that seems about right for a hotel his mom picked.

Setting down their suitcases near the entry, they venture further into the suite to find the bedroom. They notice it at the same time, both of them pausing in the archway that separates the bedroom from the living room.

“There’s only one bed,” Steve says flatly. 

Tony winces, “Shit, I’m sorry. I should’ve known not to let her book the room for us. She said she was going to do it, and I didn’t even think about it.”

“There’s that not thinking stuff through thing again, huh?” 

“I’m sure it won’t be the last time it comes back to haunt me on this trip,” Tony sighs, running his hand through his hair. “I really am sorry. You can take the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch. It probably pulls out or something.”

Steve nods, then checks the watch on his wrist. “Do you mind if I take a shower? I’ll try to be quick in the bathroom.”

“Go ahead. I’ll just get changed out here.”

Steve goes into the bathroom, and Tony retrieves his suitcase. Setting it on the coffee table, he unzips the bag to find better clothes. His mom didn’t say where they were going, but knowing her, he can only assume it’s the kind of place that expects more than the jeans and t-shirt he’s currently wearing. 

He changes into black fitted slacks and a maroon button down, finishing the look with the nicer watch and shoes that he packed, then sits on the couch fiddling with his phone while he waits for Steve. 

Steve, true to his word, is incredibly fast in the bathroom. His shower couldn’t have possibly taken more than five minutes, and Tony is about to ask how that’s even possible, but every thought leaves his brain when Steve walks out of the bathroom in only a towel wrapped around his waist. 

He’s aware enough to know that he’s staring, but he can’t help it. A spattering of water droplets coats Steve’s unexpectedly tanned skin, and a few of them drip down, navigating a path through the firm lines of Steve’s toned abdomen. His eyes follow them down, to the indent of his hips just above where the towel is resting. 

The sound of his phone falling out of his hand and hitting the floor snaps him out of it and makes him jump. He promptly closes his mouth that had fallen open at some point, and his face heats as he directs his gaze to the floor in front of him. He doesn’t dare look at Steve’s face. 

He hears Steve grabbing his own suitcase and sees his feet as he takes it into the bedroom with him. There isn’t a door, but Steve stands behind the partial wall that separates the two rooms, out of sight from Tony. 

“Any idea where we’re going?” Steve asks. 

“Uh,” Tony clears his throat, “No, but I would assume somewhere nice. Probably not tie and jacket nice, but at least a button down and pants that aren’t jeans, nice.” 

There’s a rustling in the other room from what Tony can only assume is Steve getting dressed, and then Steve asks another question, “What should I expect tonight?”

“She’s not the type to interrogate per se, if that’s what you want to know. But all of her questions are asked for a very specific reason, and you’re probably not going to figure out the reason until you’ve already given the wrong answer.

“Like if she asks you about kids, she doesn’t actually want to know if you want kids or not. It’s more of a maturity check. In her mind, if you say that you’re not opposed to the idea, it means you’re not mature because you haven’t thought about it enough to give a straight yes or no.”

Steve pokes his head out from behind the wall, brow furrowed, “So if a person isn’t sure if they want kids, they’re immature?”

“Hey, I said that it was her logic, I didn’t say it was good logic. I personally think it’s weird that she asks those questions at all, but that’s never stopped her before.”

Steve goes back to getting dressed. A minute later, he steps out of the bedroom, and this time Tony keeps his staring in check. He looks for an appropriate amount of time to look over Steve’s outfit, which is similar to Tony’s. The only difference is the dark blue shirt that does wonders to show off his muscular arms. 

He gets up from the couch and crosses the room to stand in front of Steve. His collar is crooked, and Tony reaches out to fix it. This close, Tony can smell the small amount of cologne Steve put on, mixed in with the scent of his body wash. It’s musky with a hint of something spicy and sweet, and Tony likes it a lot. 

“You want me to pass the questions, right?”

Tony shrugs, smoothing down the front of Steve’s shirt with one hand. It’s more of an excuse to touch him than an actual necessity. Steve is at least nice enough not to call him out on it, if he notices at all. 

“Honestly, she’ll probably see right through it if you’re giving her the answers you think she wants to hear, so just tell the truth. Whatever your actual answer is, just go with it.” 

“But don’t tell her I’m not opposed to the idea of kids,” Steve jokes.

“Is that your real answer?”

“Well, that depends on the question,” he says. “If she’s asking about kids in general, it’s a yes. If it’s kids with you, I don’t think I ever want to see the kind of demons you would create.”

Tony laughs, “That’s wise, but please don’t call her future grandchildren demons. I don’t think she’d appreciate it.”

Steve fiddles with the cuff of his sleeve, straightening it out, then asks, “Are we good to go?”

“Physically, sure.”

Steve smiles, “And psychologically?”

“I feel like a lamb going to slaughter, and you’re like my lamb friend who isn’t even on the same farm as me, but I brought you with me because I thought something else was happening, and now we’re both going to die.”

“That’s a terrible analogy.” 

“But it’s accurate.”

“Yeah, it kind of is.” Steve shakes his head with a soft smile, and Tony thinks that it must be some kind of miracle to have that look directed at him. 

“Okay,” Tony says. “Let’s go get murdered.”


	5. Chapter 5

The questions start almost as soon as they sit down at the table, Steve next to Tony with Maria across from them. In the car, they briefly discussed Steve and Tony’s flight, and his mom talked about her supposed ordeal on the airplane with the annoying woman that sat next to her, which took up most of the twenty minute ride. Now, in the restaurant, they barely have enough time for the waiter to take their drink order before Maria is asking Steve about his job.

“I’m a photographer,” Steve says. “Mostly artistic photography, but I do the occasional event as well.”

Steve looks nervous, but in a subtle way. No one else would be able to tell, at least Tony doesn’t think they would be able to. He doesn’t have the usual tells. He isn’t fidgeting, his words are calm and measured, and nothing on his face would give him away. 

But his posture is a little too straight, shoulders rigid and held back. He makes eye contact like he’s reminding himself to do it, and all of his movements seem just shy of robotic. 

It’s strange and slightly funny to see how seriously he seems to be taking this dinner, as if he actually cares about making a good impression on Tony’s mom. If Bucky’s right about his reasoning for doing this - to help Tony make his mom happy - then maybe he really does. 

Maria smiles, “Tony tells me you’re very talented. He showed me some of your photographs, and they were quite impressive. I really enjoyed the work you did for the New York Ballet.”

Steve clearly wasn’t expecting that, and it’s Tony’s fault for not telling him that he already gave all the information he could to his mom a few days ago. They had lunch together before she left for Malibu, and she wanted to hear everything. Tony delivered, including the newer, nicer sounding version of how they met and became friends first, then started dating. The old version of on the spot hatred just wasn’t going to cut it for their supposed love story. 

The surprise registers on Steve’s face for only a second before he schools his expression into sincere gratitude. 

“Thank you, ma’am,” Steve says, then corrects himself, “Maria.”

Her smile widens, and she makes a comment on the ballet photographs that Tony doesn’t quite understand, but seems to excite Steve. They’re discussing contrast and shadows and some sort of lighting technique when the drinks come, and then the discussion turns to the menu instead. 

Tony leans over to whisper to Steve, “The salmon is good here, in case you’re wondering.”

Steve looks at him curiously, obviously wondering how Tony knows what he’s thinking. The answer, which he won’t tell Steve, is that he asked Bucky to tell him things about Steve, seeing as Steve decided that there wasn’t much to tell when they had dinner together the other night. And now he knows things like the fact that Steve always orders salmon when it’s on a menu, even at places where he probably shouldn’t. 

Tony winks, and Steve gives him a soft smile. Yeah, definitely a miracle to have that smile directed at him, he concludes. He’s going to miss it when they get back home and everything goes back to normal. 

When the dinner order has been taken, Maria says, “So, Tony tells me that you were in the army.”

Steve instantly straightens back up, like the reminder of his time in the military also told him to fix his posture. “Yes, for six years. Bucky and I enlisted together.”

“Oh, how is Bucky doing?” Maria brightens even more if that’s possible, which is weird, because Tony could have sworn she wasn’t a fan of him, and Steve seems to relax at the way the army topic quickly fades away.

“He’s great,” Steve says. “He’s nearly done with his last semester. Graduating next month.”

“That’s good to hear. I’ve always liked him.”

Tony narrows his eyes, “No, you haven’t.”

Steve discreetly delivers a sharp kick to his leg under the table, but Tony ruins the subtly by very obviously jumping.

“As your boyfriend, no. But in general, I’ve always thought he was a very nice young man,” Maria says. She turns back to Steve. “You two grew up together, correct? He spoke about you a lot when I met him.”

Tony mostly stays out of the conversation after that, seeing as his momentary involvement resulted in a sore shin, and just listens as Steve talks about his childhood in Brooklyn. He’s heard a lot of it before from Bucky, but it’s interesting to realize that they talk about each other in the exact same way. The brotherly fondness is evident in every word, even when Steve’s jokes are at Bucky’s expense. 

It’s the same way Bucky always talks about Steve, the way Tony heard the stories for two years before he ever met Steve. It was a closeness that Tony envied at first, because he’d never had it quite like that with anyone himself. He comes close with Rhodey, having known him longer than any of his other friends, but they still aren’t at the level of Steve and Bucky. 

He pays closer attention when Steve starts talking about his family, which is newer information for him. He’s only heard about Steve’s mom in passing, but never from Steve himself.

“My mom is a nurse,” he says. “She’s thinking about retiring soon, but I don’t think she’ll ever fully commit to it. She loves it too much to just stop completely.”

“She’s still in Brooklyn?”

Steve smiles, “Yes, still in the same apartment I grew up in.”

“Oh, I would love to meet her when we get back to New York. She sounds lovely.”

Steve falters for the first time. Neither of them were anticipating dragging Steve’s mom into this, and Tony fumbles for an excuse to prevent it, “That would be great, but I actually haven’t met her myself yet.”

Maria seems surprised by this, but doesn’t let it show for more than a split second. “Well, some time in the future, then.”

Steve nods stiffly, and Tony puts a comforting hand on his knee under the table. Steve brushes it off, though, with a flick of his hand. 

“Yeah, definitely,” Tony says, plastering on a smile. 

The conversation moves from one uncomfortable topic to the next, when Maria asks, “So, tell me, when exactly did this -” She gestures between the two of them - “start?” 

“Four months ago,” Steve and Tony say at the exact same time. It comes out sounding rehearsed, and Tony has to hold back his grimace.

“Give or take a couple weeks,” Tony adds on. He looks over at Steve, smiling like the adoring boyfriend he’s supposed to be. 

Steve does the same after a moment of hesitation and even adds an additional touch by putting his arm around Tony’s shoulders, resting it on the back of his chair. 

His mom smiles as well, looking to be happy with the display of affection. It makes Tony’s stomach turn, though, and the guilt returns in full force. He really hates lying to her, even when it’s giving the result he thought he wanted.

He swallows hard, and Steve delivers the comforting touch this time by lightly squeezing his shoulder. It helps, but not by much.

Thankfully, the arrival of the food breaks up that part of the conversation and gives him something to do besides wallow in his guilt. 

He recovers enough after a forkful of carbonara to change the topic, “You should really have Steve tell you about this baby shower he took pictures for a few weeks ago. It’s a real doozy.”

With that, Steve launches into the story that Tony already heard on the plane ride, allowing him to once again just sit back and watch Steve impress the hell out his mom. 

He spends the rest of dinner just watching Steve and noticing little things about him. Things he never had the opportunity to observe before, like the scrunch of his nose when he wants to disagree with something, but he’s too polite to actually say it. Tony probably hasn’t seen it before because Steve has no problem outright disagreeing with him, but he won’t do it to Tony’s mom. Instead his nose scrunches, his thumb twitches, and he bites the corner of his lower lip like he’s physically restraining himself from saying something. 

Steve’s arm eventually leaves the back of his chair, but casual touch becomes a semi-regular thing. That part is less weird than he was expecting. Steve’s hand lands on Tony’s forearm or bicep every once and awhile, and Tony touches his shoulder without getting shrugged off. 

Near the end of the meal, Steve excuses himself to the restroom, leaving Tony only with his mom. 

“So, what do you think?” he asks the second Steve is out of earshot. 

She smiles, “I think he’s wonderful.”

“Yeah?” A fresh wave of guilt arrives, and he takes a long sip from his glass to cover up whatever facial expression he’s making. 

“Of course,” she says. “He seems to care about you quite a lot.”

Tony almost chokes on his water. “Um, yeah. We’re, uh, it’s going well.”

“I can tell. You’ve been quiet, and I’ve never seen you this nervous for me to meet a boyfriend before.”

Well, that’s one way to interpret his nerves, which were apparently less disguised than he thought. 

“He’s different than the others,” Tony says. A half truth makes him feel slightly better than the complete lies. “And you’re such a liar, by the way. You hated Bucky.”

Maria laughs, head tilted back in a carefree manner. “I didn’t hate him. I told you, I just didn’t like him for you.”

“Right,” Tony says, drawing out the word. “We can pretend that’s the truth if you want.”

With Steve out of the room, she has no qualms about tossing a piece of broccoli at him and telling him to shut up. She’s always so formal in front of other people, likely a product of a too long marriage that required it, but the act never lasts when it’s just the two of them. 

“It is the truth. You two never seemed like a couple to me, and I told you as much when I met him.”

“Yeah, well, you were right about that one.”

“I’m always right, and one day you’re going to learn that.”

Tony laughs, “Not always. Just ninety nine percent of the time.”

Maria smiles and twirls the stem of her wine glass between her fingers. Tony knows that something more serious is about to be said from the way she watches the liquid swirl. She has very few tells, but he always recognizes this one. 

“You really should hang on to this one, though,” she finally says. “He’s a good one.”

“I’ll try my best,” Tony says, feeling deflated again. Then he remembers, “Oh, and I can’t believe you let him call you Maria already.”

She grins, “Well, I couldn’t let him keep calling me ma’am.” 

Tony laughs, a little too loud for the environment, but he doesn’t care. Of course there was an ulterior motive. 

“I won’t tell him that,” Tony says. “He was proud he got to call you that before Bucky.”

“Was he? That’s sweet.”

“It was, actually,” Tony confirms, smiling to himself at the memory. 

“Like I said, he’s a good one.”

“Yeah,” Tony nods, “Yeah, he is.”


	6. Chapter 6

“That, by the way, is exactly why I never could’ve asked Clint to be my fake boyfriend,” Tony says after the elevator doors are closed safely behind them in the hotel hallway. “He would’ve embarrassed the hell out of me on purpose, and yeah, it would have been funny, but I also would’ve stabbed him under the table with my fork.”

Steve laughs, “Yeah, that’s probably true.”

“Probably?” Tony raises an eyebrow. “If my mom asked him about his family, I can guarantee he would have stolen the plot to a Lifetime movie as his life story. He probably would have said he’d grown up in the circus or something.”

“Kind of fits though, doesn’t it? I’d believe it.”

They walk down the hall to the room, and Tony unlocks the door. He sets his keys and wallet down on the small table next to the couch, then sits down and kicks off his shoes. 

Steve is hovering next to the couch, looking unsure of what they should be doing right now. Tony isn’t quite tired yet, so he tilts his head toward the television and asks, “Want to watch something?”

Steve nods and takes the seat next to Tony, leaving as big of a gap as possible between them. Tony hands the remote off to him and says, “Put on whatever you want. I’m not picky.”

That’s not exactly true, but the night is going well, and contrary to popular belief, he really doesn’t like turning everything into an argument. 

“That went well, right?” Steve asks as he flips through the channels. “It felt like it did, but you know her better than I do.”

“She likes you a lot. Said I should hang on to you.”

“Well, I am an excellent influence.”

Tony laughs and settles back into the couch cushions. Steve goes through every channel before finally picking something, and then he relaxes back himself. 

“ _House_ _Hunters_? Really?”

Steve shrugs, “There was nothing else on.”

Tony watches the couple on screen argue about house locations for a few minutes, then says, “I think I have to make it your fault when I tell my mom we broke up, by the way.”

Steve turns to look at him, his head resting on the top of the cushion behind him. “Why? I thought you were going to tell her it was mutual or something.”

“Because she really, really likes you,” Tony says. “If I break up with you I’ll never hear the end of it, but if you had some kind of sordid affair or you went to prison for murder then she can hate you instead.” 

“Who did I have the affair with?”

“I don’t know, but it was a real downgrade. You regretted it a lot. Begged me on your knees to take you back. There were big, ugly tears and everything. It was kind of pathetic, actually.”

Steve hums, a small smile on his face, “Sounds about right.” 

“Your life really spiralled downhill after that. Might give you a gambling problem just to spice it up a little more.”

Steve laughs, “And if you go with the murder lie, who did I kill?”

“Vehicular manslaughter. You jumped the curb and hit an old lady.”

“I don’t even have a driver’s license.”

“You don’t?”

Steve shakes his head, “Never needed one. I’ve never lived outside of New York except when I was in Afghanistan.”

“Two crimes for the price of one, I guess,” Tony says.

“And what are you actually going to tell her?”

Tony groans, burying his face in his hands. The couple on the screen continues critiquing houses like he isn’t in the middle of a crisis. 

“I’ve got no fucking clue.”

“Well, we’ve still got five more days here,” Steve says. “That’s plenty of time for me to completely undo the positive impression I’ve given her.”

“How do you plan on doing that?” Tony asks. “Because I’m pretty sure at this point you’d have to do something literally insane for her to change her mind, and I don’t think you’d be comfortable making a scene at Nat’s wedding.”

Steve grimaces, “Definitely not.”

“Are you sure? I don’t think Nat would even mind. She loves drama.”

“I am not ruining your cousin’s wedding because you’re an idiot.”

“You don’t have to ruin it,” Tony says. “You just have to cause a minor scene. Maybe start a small fire during the reception. Stick your arm over a candle on ‘accident.’”

“How about I behave like a normal human being at the wedding, and you just tell your mom that we broke up for a normal reason?”

“Or,” Tony starts, holding his finger up, “you move to Switzerland. I hear it’s lovely there this time of year.”

“Why can’t you be the one to move to Switzerland?”

Tony actually contemplates it for longer than he should. “I wouldn’t mind it. But I’ve still got at least another semester on my PhD.”

Steve smiles, the light from the television casting his face in a shade of blue that makes his eyes appear to be glowing somehow.  _ Huh,  _ Tony thinks,  _ I’ve never noticed how nice his eyes are.  _

“I have to imagine there’s an easier solution than anything you’re coming up with. People break up all the time without crazy reasons.”

“Do they?” Tony questions. “Because the last person I dated before Bucky broke up with me because she had a dream that I cheated on her, and the person before that broke up with me because a psychic told them we shouldn’t be together.”

Steve gives him a baffled look, then says, “Maybe these people are the reason your mom thinks I’m good for you.”

“That might be true,” Tony concedes. 

Steve is still smiling when he turns back to the television, where the couple is now choosing house number three. The next episode starts a few minutes later, but Tony can’t turn his brain off enough to focus on it. 

He stands rather abruptly and tells Steve, “I’m gonna go shower.”

Steve nods, still looking at the TV, and Tony grabs his bag of toiletries from his luggage to take into the bathroom with him. 

He goes through the motions of brushing his teeth while his mind is elsewhere, thinking about the week ahead of them. Tomorrow evening they are meeting up with Natasha and her fiance, Sam, at a bar he owns on the coast, but the morning is otherwise empty. The day after that is the dinner with his father, followed by the rehearsal dinner the next night. Tony got roped into attending Nat’s bachelorette party the next day, and Steve will probably appreciate the break from being his boyfriend for the day. The last full day is the wedding, and they’ll be back in New York the next afternoon. 

_ Six days,  _ Tony thinks as he stares at his own reflection in the mirror.  _ I can handle six days.  _

He undresses slowly and showers even slower, trying to kill time. His body ends up more thoroughly cleaned than it probably ever has been before, but he isn’t sure he can handle going back to the couch to make small talk. It’s been going too well for him to blow it all now, right at the end of the night. 

As he rinses the conditioner from his hair, he can’t help but contemplate Steve’s behavior over the last 24 hours. Other than a few minor bumps, it’s been pretty smooth and not at all like what he was expecting. He was expecting arguments and petty fights, which would be consistent with everything he’s experienced in the last year they’ve known each other. Instead, they’ve managed hours worth of quality conversations that have actually let him get to know Steve as, dare he even think it, a friend. 

He doesn’t understand the reason, no matter how much time he spends thinking about it. But they always say don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, so he’s not going to question it, even if it makes him suspicious as hell. 

Turning the water off, he dries himself with one of the towels and steps out of the shower. He realizes too late that he should have brought clothes in with him, and now he has to walk out with the towel around his waist like Steve did earlier. Except Steve has nothing to be ashamed of.

He walks out of the bathroom, well aware of Steve’s eyes on him. They land on the long scar on his chest, and before Steve can ask, Tony simply says, “Heart surgery.”

Steve’s eyes snap up to Tony’s face, and there are clearly more questions he wants to ask. But he doesn’t ask them, and Tony doesn’t offer up any more information. He gathers his pajamas from his suitcase and goes back into the bathroom to change into them. 

When he comes back out, Steve is holding his toothbrush in his hand, standing right outside the door, and they wordlessly trade places. 

Tony turns on the lamp on the side table and shuts off the TV. From the closet, he retrieves the spare blanket and takes one of the pillows from the bed. He then removes the cushions from the couch, slides over the coffee table, and pulls to expand the couch into something resembling a bed. He puts his one pillow at the top, spreads out the blanket, then climbs in under it. 

It’s better than the floor, but only slightly. 

Steve comes out of the bathroom while Tony is trying to find a position that doesn’t result in a lump pressing into his spine. He leans against the wall, now clad in pajama pants with his arms crossed over his bare chest and an amused look on his face. 

“How’s it going?” he asks teasingly.

“Oh, just great,” Tony replies. “I’m incredibly comfortable. Honestly, it might be better than the bed.”

Steve plays along, “Oh, yeah? Maybe we should trade then.”

“I mean, it’s only fair that you get the most comfortable sleeping place.” 

Steve laughs, then stands up straight. He turns to head into the bedroom, calling out over his shoulder, “Come on, we can just share.”

Tony bolts upright. “Wait, what? Did I hear that right?”

“It’s a big bed,” Steve says. “We’ll stay on our own sides, and it’ll be fine. Besides, I don’t need to hear you complaining tomorrow about how much your back hurts from that thing.”

Tony gets up quickly, taking his pillow with him to the bedroom. 

Steve has already claimed his side of the bed, putting Tony to his right on the side closest to the window. Tony gets in before Steve can change his mind. 

Steve is facing the wall, turned away from Tony, so he does the same and faces the window. He puts himself as far away as he possibly can, his arm nearly dangling off the bed. 

The only sounds in the room are the distant traffic and their low breathing, and every movement seems a thousand times more disruptive in the quiet. Tony resists the urge to shuffle around and change his position like he wants. Rhodey was the first to inform him that he is an annoying person to share a bed with, and he doesn’t want Steve to learn that lesson too quickly. 

But even though he told himself he wasn’t going to question it, he has to ask, “Why are you being so nice to me?”

Steve takes a few seconds to respond, “Did you want me to be mean to you?”

“No, just -” Tony cuts off, trying to find a way to justify the question without outright accusing Steve of usually being an asshole. “You don’t like me. I’m actually pretty sure that you hate me.”

He hears Steve turn around, so he does the same. They’re face to face in the darkness, still separated by a few feet of empty space. 

“I don’t hate you.”

“You literally leave rooms when I walk into them,” Tony says, which is true and has definitely happened more than once. The first time he thought it was a coincidence, but the next three times formed a pattern that was a little hard to ignore. 

“I don’t hate you,” Steve repeats.

“But you don’t like me.”

Steve pauses again. “I don’t not like you.”

Tony frowns, “I don’t know what that means.”

In lieu of explaining himself, Steve says, “You don’t like me either.”

“You didn’t like me first.” 

Steve sighs, “Can we just go to sleep?”

Tony agrees, but only because the conversation isn’t going anywhere. He doesn’t have any more answers than he did five minutes ago, and if anything he’s more confused. 

But he doesn’t roll back to his corner of the bed, and neither does Steve. They fall asleep still facing each other, a little closer than they were in the beginning. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone that's left comments/kudos and/or subscribed to this one so far!

Warmth is the first thing Tony registers when he wakes up. It surrounds his entire body, from his head to his toes, and he subconsciously burrows in closer to it.

But then the warmth sighs, and Tony’s eyes pop open. 

It takes him a few seconds to get his bearings, to remember getting into bed with Steve the night before and claiming that they would both stay to their own sides. They fell asleep apart, that much he knows for sure, but migration must have happened for both of them at some point in the night to get them to this point - Tony wrapped in Steve’s arms, legs tangled together with his face planted in Steve’s chest. 

Steve’s very bare chest. And Tony’s pretty sure he’s drooled on him. 

“Oh, God,” Tony mutters to himself, thinking about how he’s going to manage to get out of bed without waking Steve up. 

“Good morning to you, too,” Steve says, low and gruff with sleep. 

So much for that plan. 

Tony scoots over, and Steve’s arms instantly unwind from around him. Sitting up, he rubs his eyes with the backs of his hands and asks, “How long have you been awake?” 

“Maybe ten minutes,” Steve shrugs. He stretches out, and the blanket slips lower to reveal more of his tanned skin. “I tried to get up, but you’re very clingy.”

“Oh,” Tony says, feeling his face heat up. “Sorry about that.”

“Anyone ever told you you’re like an octopus when you sleep?”

Tony snorts, “I’ve been compared to all sorts of things. Rhodey called me a koala.”

“Also a good description,” Steve says as he gets out of bed. He’s got a serious case of bedhead going on, and a crease in his right cheek from the pillow. Tony really wishes it wasn’t as cute as it is. 

Steve disappears into the bathroom, and Tony flops back onto the bed, spreading his limbs out. He closes his eyes, and almost falls back asleep before Steve returns. 

“What are we doing today?”

Tony cracks one eye open. “Nat wanted to meet up tonight at Sam’s bar. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, though. I’ll just tell her you had other plans or something.”

“Do you not want me to come?” Steve sits on the bed, and Tony moves his arm out of the way to give him some space. 

“I’m just giving you options,” Tony says. “I can make up a fake friend for you to visit if you want to do something else. Or you can come and meet Nat and Sam and hear what I’m sure will be embarrassing stories from my youth. Your call.”

Steve is quiet for almost a full minute before he decides, “I think I’ll come.”

“Okay. You can change your mind later if you want.”

“It really sounds like you want to get rid of me.”

“No, no,” Tony says in a rush. “I just - the other stuff you don’t really have much of a choice with, and you’re already doing a lot for me, so I want you to know that you don’t really have to do this one unless you want to.”

“Well, I want to.”

“Okay,” Tony says again. Then he adds on, “But also let me know later if you change your mind.” 

Steve rolls his eyes and hits Tony with his pillow. Tony makes a rather undignified sound that he’ll deny until the day he dies and attempts to shield himself with his hands, but doesn’t make it in time. 

Steve laughs as he gets back up and heads over to his suitcase, which is sitting on top of the dresser. He rummages through and pulls out a t-shirt, slipping it over his head. Glancing over his shoulder, he says, “C’mon, you’re buying me breakfast.”

“Oh, am I?” Tony asks, tossing back the blanket to get out of bed.

Steve smiles, “Yeah, you are, and you’re going to tell me all about Natasha so I’m not going in blind.”

“Honestly, I think I’m just going to tell her that it’s fake,” Tony says as he goes into the other room to retrieve clothes. 

“Why?”

“There’s no point in lying to her, too. She’ll keep up the lie with my mom if I ask her to.” Tony grabs a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, taking them into the bathroom with him. He speaks louder to be heard through all the walls and doors while he changes. “Plus, I’m pretty sure she’d figure it out in about ten seconds, anyway. It’s actually kind of creepy how perceptive she is.”

Tony balls up his pajamas and tosses them in the general direction of his suitcase from the bathroom door. Steve, standing on the threshold of the living room, watches them land on the floor and asks, “Are you always this messy?”

“No,” Tony says, stepping back in the bathroom to brush his teeth. “Bucky yells at me when I leave things on the floor.”

Steve joins him in the bathroom and grabs his own toothbrush. “And what makes you think that I won’t?”

“I’m sure you will, but I only have to listen to you complain about it for a week. It’s permanent with Bucky.”

Steve can’t reply with the toothbrush in his mouth, so he rolls his eyes again instead. Tony makes a mental note to pick up the clothes when they get back from breakfast, because annoyed Steve is his least favorite Steve. 

***

Twenty minutes later, they end up at a small place that the hotel concierge recommended when Steve asked, seated at a booth near the back while they wait for the identical orders of blueberry pancakes.

“So why’d you join the army?” Tony asks, setting his cup of black coffee back down. He’s been wondering since dinner last night, when Steve didn’t seem very interested in talking about it. 

“Honestly? There weren’t that many other options, and Bucky had been talking about doing it for years, so I just decided to go with him.” Steve stops, looks at Tony’s face, and asks, “What? Not the answer you were expecting?”

“Not really, no,” Tony admits. “I guess I was expecting some sort of speech on patriotic duty or something.” 

Steve laughs, “No, it was nothing like that. I just couldn’t afford college, and neither could Buck. Army didn’t seem so bad at the time.”

“At the time? What about now?”

“I don’t regret it, if that’s what you want to know. But it’s not really as simple as they make it sound.” 

Steve doesn’t sound like he wants to talk about it anymore than that, so Tony doesn’t ask any follow up questions like he wants to. Instead he asks, “So why photography now?”

“I’ve always liked it,” Steve shrugs. “Bucky’s mom gave me a camera for my birthday when I was a kid, and it was a hobby for a really long time. I wasn’t really planning on making a career of it, but it sort of happened anyway.”

“A photography career just ‘sort of happened?’”

Steve smiles, “Yeah, it did. I started taking some classes right when I got back, and a professor of mine was looking for someone to photograph their daughter’s gender reveal party, so I offered to do it. Then they recommended me to a friend, and it sort of spiralled from there. The artistic photography came a while after that. You could have warned me, by the way, that you told your mom about that.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to throw you off, but she was asking, and Bucky gave me your website, so,” Tony trails off, waving a hand through the air. 

Steve nods, absentmindedly swirling his spoon through his coffee. He takes it with two packets of sugar and one cream, Tony’s learned this morning. He’s filed that information away for a later date, into his growing list of facts about Steve. 

“So Natasha,” Steve starts, switching the topic away from himself. “What do I need to know about her?”

Tony has to think about it for a while. He’s known her since they were in diapers, but if anything that makes it even harder to know where to start. They have over twenty years together, and it’s hard to boil all of that down into one little summary. 

Steve makes it easier by asking, “Are you the same age?”

“She’s a few months older,” Tony says. “We spent a lot of time together when we were really young, but after I moved to New York, I only saw her once or twice a year. We made sure to pick colleges in the same city, though, and we lived together when we were in Boston.”

“You’re still close, then?”

“Yeah, pretty close. The distance sucks now, but we still text all the time. Like the first couple of months she was dating Sam, I got texts every day with updates. I know literally everything about him.”

“How long have they been together?”

“I think it’s been two years, but they kind of knew each other before that. They had a lot of the same friends, saw each other around a lot,” Tony says. “Honestly, I think her mom and mine always wanted us to end up together, but they basically raised us like siblings, so that was never going to happen. But he’s probably the next best thing.”

Steve laughs, leaning back in his seat, “What a ringing endorsement.”

Tony grins, “He’s really great. You’ll like him.” 

“What makes you say that?”

“Because Bucky likes him,” Tony says. Then he corrects, “Although, Bucky likes me, and you don’t like me, so maybe that’s not true.”

Steve’s eyebrows furrow. He glosses right over the last part of that statement. “When did Bucky meet him?”

“Natasha visited last year, and he came with her. It was before you came back from Afghanistan.”

Steve frowns, and the crease between his brows grows a little deeper. Tony doesn’t get why, but he seems slightly upset. It’s almost a minute later that he gets something like an explanation. 

“I was only gone for a couple of years after Buck came home, but I feel like I missed everything.”

“What do you mean?”

Steve keeps his gaze locked on the table, holding his chin up with his fist. “When we left, we were pretty much all each other had. We had our families, sure, but other than that he was it for me and I was it for him.” 

“Wait, were you in love with him or something?” 

Tony blurts the question without even thinking, and it startles a laugh out of Steve. “Oh, God, no. It’d be just like you and Natasha being together.”

“Gross.”

“Exactly,” Steve says. His smile is bittersweet. “It was just weird to come back and meet all of these new people. To hear him talk on the phone about all of you, and all the things he was doing. It was like…”

“He got a new life without you,” Tony finishes for him when he stops, and Steve nods. “Is that why you hate me? Because we got close while you were gone?”

Steve shakes his head and laughs, “No, that’s not why.”

“Oh, but you admit that you do hate me.”

“I’m admitting nothing.”

“But there is a reason then?”

“Yeah, it’s because you’re really fucking annoying,” Steve says, on the border between serious and joking. He does that a lot, Tony’s noticed. 

Tony waves that notion away. “Nope, not it. I’m annoying to everyone, and people love it. I grow on them.”

“Like mold.”

Tony balls up his napkin and throws it at him. 


	8. Chapter 8

Natasha takes less than ten seconds to accuse Tony of lying about Steve being his boyfriend. It’s the very first thing she says when they walk into Sam’s bar that night. 

“So are you lying to your mom?” she asks, leaning her elbows on the counter that she’s standing behind. “Or are you keeping secrets from me? Because last I checked you didn’t like this guy.”

Steve looks at Tony and smiles widely, “You’ve told your friends about me. How sweet.”

Tony rolls his eyes and elbows Steve in the ribs, making him laugh. As they cross the short distance to where Nat is, she comes out from behind the counter and wraps him in a tight hug. 

“So which is it?” Natasha asks as she pulls back. She eyes Steve with suspicion, and Tony knows she’s waiting for Tony’s answer before she can decide if she likes him or not.

“Lying to my mom,” Tony sighs. “It was this or go on a date with Marian from book club’s son.”

Natasha scrunches her nose, “Marian with the perm?”

“That’s the one.” 

“Yeah, good call.” She looks over at Steve again. “And you’re helping him?”

“He has an interesting set of morals,” Tony supplies to go along with Steve’s nod.

She tilts her head and crosses her arms over her chest, still looking at Steve even as she asks Tony, “So we like him now?”

“We’re neutral, but strongly leaning toward positive feelings,” Tony says. 

Natasha smiles, “Alright, he’s fine.”

“Wow, thanks,” Steve replies sarcastically. 

Natasha laughs, grabbing Tony by the hand and pulling him along through the bar. It’s reasonably crowded for a Tuesday night, with most people drinking beers and watching the baseball games that are playing on the numerous televisions. The Angels are on half of the screens while the Dodgers are on the rest, and the sound from the viewers comes in waves as each team either does something good or terrible. 

She takes them to a table at the back, and Tony goes into one side of the booth while she slips into the other. Steve follows Tony into his side after only a moment of hesitation. 

“So where’s Sam?” Tony asks.

“In the back. He’ll be out soon,” Nat says. She smiles devilishly, “And in the meantime, you can tell me about what’s happening here.” 

“I already told you, I’m avoiding book club Marian’s son.”

“Yeah, but what’s the lie we’re telling your mom?”

“We?”

“Of course, I’m in on this now, too,” she says, sounding a touch offended that Tony couldn’t see how obvious that should have been. “But we’re not telling Sam because he’s terrible at keeping secrets, so you’re playing young and in love when he gets here.”

“Steve’s too old to be young and in love.”

For that, Steve smacks the back of his head, but it has the opposite effect than intended and makes Tony grin. 

“It wasn’t an insult, darling. Just a statement of fact.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but even in a poorly lit bar Tony can see that his cheeks have flushed pink. He was expecting push back on the endearment, but he receives none. 

_ Interesting,  _ Tony thinks _.  _

He turns back to Natasha and explains the full story, starting with what was supposed to be just a white lie to get out of a blind date and ended up being much more elaborate. He goes through their fake backstory, one of friends that turned into more, the dinner with his mom the night before, and everything she’s had to say about it so far. 

Natasha alternates between judging him for his stupidity and laughing at him, both of which he recognizes that he deserves. She nearly cries from laughing too hard when he says that he might tell his mom that Steve died instead of having to craft a fake breakup story. Steve is considerably less amused, which only adds to her enjoyment of it.

“And,” he says near the end of the story, “now he has to come with me to have dinner with both of my parents tomorrow.”

Natasha grimaces, “She told me she set that up. I’m sorry you have to do that. I tried to talk her out of it.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, but she kept saying that it would be good for you and ‘don’t you think a boy should have a relationship with his father, piccola?’” Natasha’s impression of his mother is better than his own, but her Italian is much worse. She butchers the word completely, and Tony laughs. She flips him off as she carries on, “I told her that a boy should, but you’re not exactly one of those anymore, even if you do have the maturity level of a five year old.”

It’s Steve’s turn to laugh now, and he says, “That’s true.”

“No, it’s not,” Tony scoffs, resisting the urge to cross his arms and prove the point. He turns serious again and says to Natasha, “Thank you for trying. I also told her I didn’t need it, but she was adamant, so I guess I can suck it up for one night.”

“Well, she’ll be wrong in the end, anyway.”

Tony shrugs in response, not really wanting to talk about it anymore. If anyone had asked a few weeks ago about his relationship with his father, he wouldn’t have hesitated to say he doesn’t have one, and he would have been fine with it. He doesn’t really appreciate the ‘it’s complicated’ he has to give now, even if he knows that his mom is coming from a good place. 

Luckily, Sam picks this time to finally join them, sliding into the empty space next to Natasha. He says hello to Tony first, then turns to Steve and extends his hand, “Hey, you must be Steve. I’m Sam. Nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” Steve says, shaking Sam’s hand. “Thank you for letting me crash your wedding. I know it was pretty last minute.”

“Oh, it’s fine. We’re glad you could come,” Sam replies. He smiles and adds, “And we’re happy to get to meet Tony’s boyfriend.”

Natasha just barely manages to suppress her laugh with a cough, and Tony has to bite his lip to keep in his own. He feels bad tricking Sam, too, but he’s also seen the man try to keep a secret. He only had the ring for the proposal for an hour before he blew it, and Natasha had to pretend for weeks that she didn’t hear his slip of tongue. 

“Yeah, me too,” Tony says. He covers Steve’s left hand with his own, both of them resting on top of the table. 

Steve gives him a subtle look from the corner of his eye, then, surprisingly, entwines Tony’s fingers with his own. 

Tony decides to push his luck even further. He lifts his right arm and settles it along the back of the booth, not quite touching Steve, but directly behind him. It appears affectionate on the outside, but really Tony just wants to know how far he can go before Steve kicks him under the table like he did yesterday. 

From then on it’s like a game. Natasha mentions Sam being former Air Force, and he and Steve connect over that for a while, swapping stories and anecdotes from their time in the military. Topics move easily between the four of them, never once falling into silence. The entire time Tony is finding ways to push limits, and Steve pushes them right back. 

Tony calls him babe, and Steve responds with two endearments of his own in back to back sentences. He makes up a story about a sweet date Steve took him on, and Steve responds with his own pretty lie. Tony kisses the back of Steve’s hand, and Steve kisses his cheek a few minutes later. It leaves his skin feeling hot, and he just barely resists the temptation to touch the spot where Steve’s lips just were. Tony doesn’t even have time to recover from it before Steve refers to Tony as “honey” when he asks him if he wants a drink. He just nods, and then Steve and Sam go over to the bar together. 

“So this is fun,” Natasha says when they’re far enough away. She’s grinning from ear to ear, probably because she knows that Tony is currently suffering. “He’s definitely winning this game, by the way.”

Tony buries his face in his hands and sighs, “Please stab me. It’d be a mercy killing. Any court of law would understand.”

Natasha laughs, “No way. It’s making my night watching you fail and getting flustered.”

“I am not flustered.”

“You absolutely are,” she says. “You’ve been beet red for the last ten minutes, and you should have seen your face when he called you ‘sweetheart.’”

“I don’t even like him,” Tony says, but it sounds like a lie even to his own ears. It’s becoming less and less true as the time passes, and at this point he honestly isn’t sure if it was ever true. He never really had a problem with Steve himself, but with the fact that the other man seemed to dislike him so much. 

“So I’ve heard.”

“He’s the worst person I’ve ever met.”

“As I’ve also heard.”

“He sucks.”

Natasha gives a noncommittal hum. 

“And he’s not even good looking.”

Natasha snorts, “Now I know for sure you’re lying. That man is like a walking advertisement for protein powder.”

“He doesn’t like protein powder.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow, and Tony realizes what he’s said. “Oh, really? That’s an interesting thing to know about someone you don’t like.”

“I don’t like him,” Tony repeats firmly, if only to convince himself.

“Who don’t we like?” 

Tony jumps at the sound of Sam’s voice and turns his head quickly to watch Steve set two drinks down and slip back into the booth. Natasha waves off the question, but Steve must know what they were discussing. His jaw is slightly clenched, posture a little rigid, and Tony instantly feels bad for the small part of the conversation they must have overheard. 

The rest of the night passes a little uncomfortably, at least for Tony. Steve and Sam continue to talk, connecting over baseball and football and other things neither Tony nor Natasha have much interest in.

Their little game falls away, and Tony finds that he misses the feeling of Steve’s arm slung around his waist and the press of Steve’s thigh against his own. Now they only keep it up just enough to not seem strange in front of Sam, but it feels hollow in a way it didn’t before.

The pretending was nice while it lasted. 

***

It’s over an hour later as they’re driving back to the hotel that Tony finally has the chance to say, “I didn’t mean it.”

Steve either feigns ignorance or he actually doesn’t know what he’s referring to, but Tony is willing to bet it’s the former. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What I said to Nat,” Tony says. “I didn’t mean it.”

Steve is quiet for so long that Tony doesn’t think he’s going to answer at all. But then, “So how do you feel about me?”

Tony thinks about it, but the only thing he can come up with is, “I don’t know anymore.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Relax,” Steve whispers, mouth right next to Tony’s ear. 

Tony didn’t realize he was so close, and it makes him jump and immediately drop his hands from where they were straightening his tie again. 

“I am relaxed,” Tony whispers back. He doesn’t notice his hand is going back up for his tie until Steve reaches for it, holding it in his own. 

Tony stares at their entwined hands, resting atop Steve’s thigh. He wants to say something about it, but his mom is right there, sitting just a couple feet away in the back of the car. She’s politely pretending to be unaware of them.

In a few minutes they’ll be pulling up to the mansion where he spent the first nine years of his life, and the closer they get the more anxious he feels. His mom is nervous, too, though she’s more careful not to let it show. He wonders which one of them has more reason - the one seeing their father for the first time in fifteen years or the one seeing their ex-husband for the first time since what he recalls being a fairly bitter divorce. 

Thinking about it only makes it worse, though, so he turns his attention back to their hands and the way Steve’s thumb is rubbing circles into his skin. 

He glances up at Steve, but finds him looking out the window at the houses they’re going by. Each one seems to be nicer than the last, and even though Tony came from it, it still manages to make him feel terribly inadequate. 

The car pulls into a driveway, stopping at the intercom in front of a large, wrought-iron gate. Tony’s heart is in his throat as they’re buzzed through. 

Happy opens the door for them once they are stopped, and Maria exits first. Her heels crunch on the rock-covered path as she smoothes down the bottom of her navy blue dress. It shows off everything without being overt about it, and Tony knew that was her goal the second he saw her in it. The whole  _ show your ex what they’re missing  _ vibe. She simply smiled when he pointed that out earlier, neither admitting or denying anything.

Steve gets out next and pulls Tony along with him, not letting go of his hand. It’s a steadying presence, especially needed when he’s faced with the mansion in front of him. The house is exactly the same as he remembers it: purposely intimidating. 

“You grew up here?” Steve asks, voice low and a little awed. 

“Not really.”

Steve’s gaze snaps from the house to Tony’s face, and whatever he sees there makes him hold Tony’s hand a little tighter. 

“It’s just a couple of hours,” Steve says quietly. 

“Just a couple of hours,” Tony repeats to himself. 

Maria is already a few feet ahead of them on the path that leads to the front door, and she turns around and says knowingly, “The faster you come inside, the faster you can leave.”

Tony laughs, and some of the tension around them breaks. Steve continues to hold his hand as they approach the door, and every time Tony expects him to let go, he stays. Their hands are locked together when the door opens, and a formally dressed middle-aged man tells them that, “Mr. Stark is on a business call and will be out soon.” Even as they’re directed toward the living room, which doesn’t look like anyone has done much actual living in, Steve’s hand is a warm presence in his own. 

The man exits the room, telling them that dinner will be ready shortly and leaving the three of them alone in near dead silence. The ticking of a clock at the front of the room provides the only sound, noisily announcing every passing second. Was the house always this quiet?

Tony is the first to break the silence. “Who wants to take bets that he doesn’t show up at all?”

His mom looks for the briefest of moments like she wants to laugh, but instead she says, “Of course he will. He wants to see you.”

She takes a seat on one of the high-back leather chairs, perched primly on the edge with her legs crossed at the ankles. In an instant she’s back to the Maria that she was when he was young, and the distance between them felt gigantic. After the divorce and the move, she became someone else. He discovered she was actually warm and caring and loved him more than he ever thought. The original detached exterior is seeping back in from just being in this house again, and he hates it. 

“Yeah?” Tony questions. “Who told you that?”

“He did.”

Tony doesn’t quite buy it, but at the same time he has no reason to question it. He decides the conversation isn’t worth continuing and falls silent. 

He goes over to the unreasonably ornate couch, bringing Steve along with him, and flops back onto it. Steve sits down next to him with more care, and it’s only now that he lets go of Tony’s hand. Tony is disappointed for all of one second before Steve’s hand lands on his knee instead. 

Tony glances over at him, and they share a soft smile. His says thank you, while Steve’s says you’re welcome. 

Five minutes of horribly uncomfortable silence later, Tony asks, “Are you sure about that?”

Maria sighs, “He’s the one that arranged it in the first place.”

“What?” Tony frowns. Everything he’s heard so far about it, which is admittedly very little, implied that it was her idea, and she’s the one that kept insisting on it happening. 

“He called almost a month ago about seeing you,” she says, looking like she’s offering the information reluctantly. 

“You told me about this last week.”

“I said no at first.”

Tony grows more confused. “Then why are we here?”

“He was quite insistent, and I thought this would be better than the alternative.”

“Alternative?” 

She bites her lip, smudging the once perfect dark red lipstick a bit. “You’re an adult. There’s nothing I can do to prevent him from seeing you now. At least I can be here for this.”

Tony’s mouth opens and shuts a few times as he tries to decide what to say. “I don’t understand any of this conversation.”

“Just say no when he asks.”

“Say no to what?”

“Whatever it is he wants from you.”

Tony shares a look with Steve, who seems to be following along with what’s happening about as well as he is. It feels like a conversation that should have happened earlier and with more details, and he tells her as much.

She sighs again, weary and drained already somehow, “I should have warned you, but I wanted to be wrong. I hoped he wanted to see you for something other than his own selfish purposes, but it seems that fifteen years doesn’t change much.”

“That’s an awful lot to conclude from someone being a few minutes late,” Tony says. He leans forward on his elbows, accidentally dislodging Steve’s hand from his knee. It finds the small of his back instead, still providing a sense of comfort. In the back of his mind, it vaguely registers as strange that he finds comfort in Steve’s touch, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it now. There are, apparently, bigger issues at hand. 

“You were the one willing to bet he wouldn’t show at all,” she says with a wry smile. 

“Well, experience said it was a safe bet.”

She does laugh this time. “Then you should trust my experience when it says that he only called because he wants something from you, and you should tell him no.”

Some of that detached exterior has left again, and maybe he was wrong to call it that in the first place. Maybe she was just trying to hide her worry, and perhaps in the past it was much the same. Another thing he doesn’t have time for: deep analysis of his childhood. 

He looks over at Steve again and plasters on a grin. “I told you you’d be in for a real shit show.”

“Oh, God,” Maria mutters, shaking her head. Her laugh takes on a slightly hysterical note. “If it helps, Steve, I promise Tony is nothing like his father, and I’m truly sorry for making you a witness to this.”

“It’s alright,” Steve says. “I’m happy to be here for Tony.”

He sounds sincere, and his hand slides up and down Tony’s back to confirm it. Tony has to remind himself, though, that it’s just an act, and Steve is apparently quite the actor. 

They fall back into silence momentarily, the clock filling the room again with its ticking, until Tony suggests, “There’s really no reason that we couldn’t just leave.”

Maria rests her chin on her hand, leaning against the armrest. “He’ll just call again.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to answer.”

“There’s still a chance he’s just late,” she says, resigned and clearly not believing it herself. 

Tony contemplates it for a moment, then stands up rather abruptly. Two confused faces look back at him. 

“What are you doing?” Steve asks. 

“He’s in his office, right? Might as well get it over with,” Tony shrugs, pretending to be casual while inside he’s a ball of nerves. He starts to walk off, then pauses and turns back around. Sheepishly, he admits, “I don’t really remember where it is.”

Maria laughs and points in the direction of the office, “Down that hall, take a left at the end. Last door on the right.”

Tony nods and straightens out his jacket. He rolls his neck a few times, steeling himself for what comes next as he heads down the hallway.

A hand on his shoulder stops him after just a few feet. 

“Hey, are you sure you want to do this?”

“It’s fine, Steve. I’ll go in there, hear what he wants, probably tell him to go fuck himself, and then we can get out of here.”

They’re far enough away that Maria is hidden behind the wall, but they keep their voices low to avoid being overheard. 

“Or we could just go now. You seemed pretty into that idea just a second ago.”

Tony sighs, “She’s right, though. He’ll just call again, and she’ll be in the middle of it. At least this way it’s done with.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you have to do this.”

Tony bites his lip, then confesses to the floor, “I think it’ll drive me crazy if I never know. Like, maybe there is still a chance that he actually cares, and this isn’t what we’re all thinking it is. I don’t want to have to spend the rest of my life wondering.”

“Okay,” Steve says, nodding slowly. “I get that, but -”

“Nope, no buts. I’m just going to go, and it’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Who are you trying to convince, me or you?” Steve says dryly. 

Tony laughs, “Does it have to be one or the other?”

“I guess not.”

Tony reaches out and grabs Steve’s forearm, squeezing gently. “Thank you for the concern, but really it’ll be fine. Although if I’m not back in fifteen minutes, you might want to come find me, because that probably means there’s a dead body, and I’m not strong enough to move it on my own.”

Steve smiles, “You’re not capable of murder, but it’s cute that you think you are.”

“I think it’s a little offensive that you don’t think I could murder someone, but I don’t have time to argue this right now, so wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Steve says softly. And then, much to Tony’s surprise, he leans in and presses his lips to Tony’s cheek. “See you in fifteen minutes.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry but i couldn't bring myself to actually write howard stark. please accept these soft boys instead.

Tony throws himself face first onto the bed the second they get back to their hotel room. He spreads his limbs out, taking up the entire space with his shoes dangling off the edge. 

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Steve says from somewhere behind him. 

Tony lifts his head to look over his shoulder. “It definitely was.”

Steve comes over to the side of the bed and crouches down by Tony’s head. He folds his arms on the edge of the mattress and rests his chin on the spot where they cross. 

For a long time he doesn’t say anything, and neither does Tony. He stares at Steve’s face in the quiet, cataloguing every line and mark that he’s never taken the time to notice before. There’s a small scar on his forehead, just below his hairline, and Tony wonders where it came from.

Steve stands rather suddenly and holds out his hand in invitation. Tony scrutinizes it curiously, looking between it and Steve’s face.

“Come on,” Steve says. “We’re going out.”

Tony rolls to one side, propping himself up on one elbow. “Out where?”

“Well, we’ve been here for a couple of days, and we’re only about a five minute walk away from the beach, but we haven’t been yet.”

“You want to go to the beach?”

Tony still hasn’t taken Steve’s hand, so Steve reaches forward and grabs Tony’s himself. Pulling on him, he doesn’t let go until Tony has gotten up from the bed. 

“I want  _ us  _ to go to the beach.”

Tony looks down at the suit Steve is still wearing. It’s slightly wrinkled now, from the long car rides there and back, but it’s still unbelievably attractive on him. 

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

“Obviously not,” Steve shakes his head with a smile. He cocks his head toward the living room. “Go get changed. You have three minutes.”

“Or what?” Tony asks, even as he’s venturing over to his suitcase. Steve unpacked his own sometime yesterday, but Tony is still living directly out of his. He tosses back the top and searches for something acceptable for the beach. “Are you going to leave without me?”

“Or I’ll drag you out in whatever you have on.”

He strips off his jacket and loosens the tie enough to pull over his head. “What if I’m naked in three minutes?”

“Then I guess you’re trying out exhibitionism today.”

Tony laughs as he undoes his belt, “Joke’s on you, I’ve already tried it.”

Silence comes from the other room. There isn’t even the sound of Steve moving around anymore, prompting Tony to ask, “What? Was that an overshare? Bucky says I do that a lot. So does Rhodey. Well, pretty much everyone who knows me says that.”

“Uh, no, it’s,” Steve’s words come out stilted, “I kind of want to ask, but I don’t think I should.”

“Because it’s inappropriate to ask, or because you don’t want to know?” Tony kicks off his dress shoes, then pulls off the socks. 

“Um, both?”

“If it helps, I can tell you that I’m not really a fan.”

A pause, then Steve says, “Yeah, I don’t need to know this.”

Tony steps out of the black pants and carefully folds them in half, then hangs them over the back of a chair, over the jacket he already took off. The shirt follows, until he’s left standing in just his boxer briefs. 

That’s the state he’s still in when Steve comes out of the bedroom, dressed now in shorts and a t-shirt. 

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Steve says quickly. He averts his gaze, staring up at the ceiling. “Just, uh, needed the bathroom.”

“You’re fine,” Tony replies, amused. 

Steve keeps his eyes locked on the ceiling as he walks and ends up bumping into the wall. He apologizes to it as if on instinct, and Tony laughs. 

“Hope the wall forgives you.”

He just barely catches the way the tips of Steve’s ears turn a vibrant shade of red before he disappears into the other room, leaving Tony to finish getting dressed on his own. 

By the time he comes back out, Tony is an outfit nearly identical to Steve’s, and they’re both ready to go. He slips his phone, wallet, and keys into his pockets, and they’re out the door. 

Tony’s flip flops squeak with every step they take down the hallway, headed towards the elevator. Steve looks down at his feet, then back up at Tony’s face with raised eyebrows.

“What? Are you judging my flip flops?”

“They’re a little loud.”

“Says the man wearing sneakers to the beach.”

Steve frowns as he presses the button for the lobby, “What was I supposed to wear?”

Tony gestures back down to his own feet, with a look that says  _ isn’t it obvious? _ “Do you know how much sand you’re going to get in those?”

“I’m hoping for none.”

“You’re going to bring half the beach back with you,” Tony says. “And you’re not allowed in bed if you’re all sandy.”

Steve laughs, “You can’t kick me out of my bed.”

“Watch me, Steven.”

They get out of the elevator and go through the lobby of the hotel. The beach is about a quarter of a mile away, just a short walk down the sidewalk from the hotel entrance. They take the walk leisurely, talking about nothing in particular. 

Steve hasn’t asked yet what exactly happened in his father’s office, and Tony isn’t offering the information freely. In the car, he only told his mom that she was right about him wanting something and left it at that. He knew she must have had questions, but she was willing to let him sit in reflective silence. He was grateful for it then, just like he’s grateful for Steve’s quiet presence right now. 

When they reach the beach, Tony asks, “So what are we doing here?”

Steve shrugs, “I don’t know. I’ve never built a sandcastle before.”

Tony runs his hand through his now wind-blown hair. “We don’t have any sandcastles tools.”

“That’s your only problem with that suggestion?”

“What else would it be?” Tony asks, grinning. Steve smiles back, and the sun behind him casts him in a golden halo. It makes Tony’s stomach do a weird swooping, and he has to distract himself from whatever it is he’s feeling with a plan of action. 

He looks down the beach in both directions and spots a food stand not too far down. Tilting his head toward it, Tony suggests, “What do you say about ice cream for dinner?” 

Steve agrees easily, “Yeah, okay. Whatever you want.”

Tony quirks an eyebrow as they start to walk in the direction of the ice cream, “Whatever I want, huh? Did it almost kill you to say that?”

Steve bumps him with his hip, catching him off guard enough that it actually sends him over about a foot. 

“No, it didn’t,” Steve says, smiling as he watches Tony jog to catch back up to where Steve has gotten ahead of him. 

“Oh, okay. I get it,” Tony says. “We’re friends now.”

Steve scoffs, “I did not say that.”

“You didn’t have to. It was implied.”

“It wasn’t -”

“It was, though. I had a bad day, and you’re cheering me up. That’s what friends do. We’re friends. No take backs.”

“But I want to take it back.”

Tony laughs, “Nope, you can’t. It’s too late. I already know that you like me.” 

“I’m tolerating you.”

“Uh huh, sure.”

“I don’t like you.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“We’re not friends.”

They’ve reached the ice cream stand and have joined the short line. Tony pulls out his wallet to be prepared and says, “Well, I don’t buy ice cream for people who aren’t my friends.”

Steve rolls his eyes as he pats his pockets, then figures out what Tony already knew. “I forgot my wallet.”

“What a shame,” Tony grins. “Guess you’ll just have to admit that we’re friends.”

“That’s extortion.”

Tony snorts, “It’s a two dollar ice cream cone, Steve. It hardly qualifies.”

Steve stares at him with narrow eyes, and Tony can see the exact moment that he breaks. He sighs, dropping his crossed arms back down to his sides, “Fine, we’re friends.”

Tony’s smile goes wider in triumph. Steve tries to look annoyed, but fails greatly. His own smile breaks through despite his best efforts to suppress it. 

They get to the front of the line, and Tony pays for his vanilla cone and Steve’s chocolate. Tony points to a spot in the sand, a bit up a small hill away from the main crowds, and doesn’t have to ask the question for Steve to know what it is. He nods, and they sit down in the sand together. 

Tony kicks off his shoes, burying his toes in the warm sand. He leans back on his elbows and watches the waves crash into the shore while the ice cream slowly melts in his hand. 

“So,” Steve starts after a few minutes of comfortable quiet, “do you want to talk about it?”

Tony licks away a trail of liquid ice cream from his hand before it can drip down his wrist. He watches a group of kids trying to surf the small waves on foam boards for a while before he finally says, “Apparently I’m worth something to him now that I’ve come close to making something of myself on my own.”

He can feel Steve’s eyes on him, but he keeps his own gaze straight ahead on the horizon. The sun will be setting soon, and traces of pink and orange shade the sky. 

“My research projects,” Tony answers the question Steve wants to ask, but hasn’t. “They’re - well, not to brag, but they’re impressive. Like, I own multiple patents, impressive.”

“And he wants them?”

Tony nods, “It’s amazing how he could spend fifteen years not caring, but the second there’s a profit involved he suddenly wants to play the doting father. He said all this shit about how the company could be mine after he retires, and that I was always supposed to be the heir of it all. And it actually sounded kind of good at first.”

Tony trails off, and Steve prompts, “But?”

“But then he mentioned the patents for a clean energy project I spent two years on, and, you know, if he just had those than the company would be in much better shape. He acted like I’d be doing myself a favor or something.

“And then he started talking about all the things I would need to change about my life to fit the part. Like the people I should be associating with, because apparently my current friends are too low class for me or whatever.”

“That’s shit,” Steve says bluntly. 

“Yeah, it was,” Tony says. He falls quiet for a moment, observing the flock of seagulls down the beach. “I might have lost my temper a bit when he mentioned you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

His cone is gone now, and he sits up, tucking his knees in close to his chest and wrapping his arms around his shins. He rests his cheek on one knee, turning his head to the side to look at Steve, who is sitting so close to him that they’re almost touching.

“What about me?”

“It turns out my father isn’t such a big fan of my sexuality, and apparently, even if he was, you still wouldn’t be good enough for me,” Tony says, voice low. The hurt flashes in Steve’s features for just a second before it’s shuddered away. “I told him that was bullshit. That you’re a good man, and if anything, I’m the one who’s not good enough for you.”

Steve bites his lip, glancing away and then back. “You defended my honor, huh?”

“You deserve better than the things he was saying.”

Steve doesn’t seem to have a response to that, letting it linger in the air between them. He lays back, and Tony watches him from over his shoulder as he gets comfortable in the sand. 

There should really be a point where Steve stops surprising him, but if there is, they haven’t reached it yet, because he still doesn’t expect the way Steve stretches his arm out in offering.

Tony lays down next to him, Steve’s arm pillowed under his head. He closes his eyes against the sun as Steve pulls him in even closer. 

In the distance, he can hear the other people around them. Some kids are laughing as they chase each other around, and parents are calling them. Somewhere else is a speaker with some pop song playing. But it all fades to the background until there’s nothing but the sound of the waves and Steve’s heartbeat. 

Breathing in deep, he’s amazed by how at peace he feels. There’s no real reason to be, but he is. It’s as close to perfect as it could be.


	11. Chapter 11

The rehearsal dinner ends up being rather boring, all things considered. After the actual rehearsal elements, where Tony and Steve have nothing to do but watch, Tony sits between his mom and Steve, surrounded by the rest of Natasha’s family during dinner. He isn’t all that familiar with her actual relatives, other than her dad, but his mom spends the night talking to him. That leaves him with mostly Steve, introducing him to people that are basically strangers to both of them. 

But when the families are mingling together after the actual dinner, and Tony’s mom is out of ear shot, Steve starts to get really creative with the lies he tells Natasha’s family, and suddenly it’s not so boring anymore. 

“Okay, I thought you were the one who was all ‘stick to the story,’” Tony says, dropping his voice an octave to mimic Steve. He just got done watching Steve lie his ass off to one of Natasha’s aunts, telling her that they met on the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day. It was all apparently very romantic, fireworks and all. “That was you, right? You wrote a whole little list of rules and rolled your eyes at me like thirty times. Pretty sure you threatened my safety more than once.”

Steve shrugs, “That was more for lying to your mom. Doesn’t matter if we stick to it with anyone else. Besides, you’ve already broken that rule a hundred times.”

“I’m a rulebreaker, Steve. It’s who I am. You, however,” Tony says, poking Steve’s chest, “You are supposed to be a rule follower.”

“Who told you that?”

“It’s like your whole thing.”

Steve raises an eyebrow, “Again, I have to ask, who told you that?”

“If I have to explain my reasoning, it’s going to end with you being very offended.” 

Steve laughs, taking a sip from his glass of white wine. “I think all of Bucky’s stories should have told you that I don’t really follow rules unless I want to.”

“Then why did you write them?” 

“In a vain attempt to get you to follow them.”

Tony laughs now, “Well, at least you realize now that there wasn’t a chance in hell of that.”

Steve sighs, heavy and overdramatic, “It was truly foolish.”

Tony leans back against the wall. They’re a bit away from everyone else, standing near the wall while most everyone is closer to the middle of the room. Natasha is the center of attention, surrounded by all the women of Sam’s family, and she clearly hates it. He can see the way she’s glancing around the room, like she’s looking for an escape plan. 

“If we’re lying now, can we at least steal our stories from better movies?” Tony asks. “I mean,  _ Sleepless in Seattle _ ? Really?”

Steve smiles, “Technically it’s from  _ An Affair to Remember _ , and then  _ Sleepless in Seattle  _ took it.”

“You’re way too into this movie.”

“Hey, you recognized where the story was from,” Steve retorts. “Clearly, you’ve seen it at least once, too.”

Tony realizes too late that there’s no way to lie his way out of that one, so he admits, “I like romantic movies when I’m drunk. Don’t tell anyone. Only two other people know that, so I’ll know it was you.”

Steve’s smile grows, “I don’t know why, but that just makes sense to me.”

“I got Bucky to watch  _ The Time Traveler’s Wife  _ with me once. He cried, but technically I was sworn to secrecy on the threat of death, so don’t let him know I told you that.”

“Think I’m gonna tell him.”

Tony very dramatically places his hand over his heart as he says, “And let me get murdered? Here I thought you loved me. What kind of a boyfriend are you?”

“Trouble in paradise?” Natasha’s teasing voice interrupts, and Tony’s wine nearly splashes over the edge of his glass when he jolts in surprise. 

“Jesus, when did you get over here?”

Natasha smirks, and clearly she snuck up on them for the express purpose of startling Tony. It’s a thing she’s been doing since they were kids, when she realized that Tony is incredibly easy to scare. She’s only gotten better at it over time, but unfortunately for him, he’s never gotten used to it.

“Just long enough to watch you flirt with your fake boyfriend.”

Tony rolls his eyes, “We’re not flirting.”

“Right, of course. Why would you be doing that?”

He gives her a look that says  _ I’m going to kill you.  _ She responds with one that says  _ I’d like to see you try.  _

“Why are you over here, anyway?” Tony asks. “Shouldn’t you be doing bride things?”

Natasha makes a face, “God, no. I need a break.”

Leaning against the wall next to him, she loops her right arm through his left. She then steals the glass of wine from Tony’s hand and downs half of it in one go. 

“Oh, yeah, please go ahead and take that. Thank you for asking,” he says dryly. 

She finishes the rest of it and puts the empty glass back in his hand. “Consider it my wedding present.”

“I thought that’s what the week long stay in Bali for you and Sam was.”

“That’s from your mom, not you.”

“I signed my name on the card.”

Natasha laughs, “No, she signed your name on the card. It said Anthony.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

Natasha smiles in response, and the three of them quietly watch the small crowd of people together for a bit before Tony asks, “So what exactly are you taking a break from? Too many people wishing you happiness?”

Natasha flicks his ear, and he grins. “More like too many people giving me advice I didn’t ask for and telling me stories I definitely didn’t need to hear. Sam’s grandma seems to be under the impression that her grandson and I are both virgins, and I don’t want to be the one to tell her that ship sailed for both of us in high school and definitely not with each other.”

“Oh, God, please tell me what she said.”

“Let’s just say that sex advice from the elderly is horrific and should definitely be ignored.”

“You should listen to your elders, Nat,” Tony teases. “They are wise.”

“I guarantee that woman has never had an orgasm in her life.”

Next to them, Steve grimaces, “I would really like to not be part of this conversation.”

They both laugh, and Natasha switches the topic, “I just want to know why everyone keeps asking me about kids. It’s absolutely none of Sam’s great aunt’s business if we plan on having kids soon.”

“Scandalize her and tell her you’re already pregnant.”

“I would, but I want to actually want there to still be a wedding on Saturday.”

Tony hums, twirling around the stem of his empty glass between his fingertips. He catches a glimpse of his mom doing the exact same thing across the room and stops himself. He’s already got more than enough of her habits. 

“What have you been telling them?”

“That we aren’t sure when we’re having them yet.”

“Is that the truth?”

She shrugs, “Close enough. It’s more like we’re not really sure we’re having them at all, but then I’d just get some kind of talk about how we should and how it’s great or whatever. No reason to invite more advice.”

“Eloping sounds great right about now, doesn’t it?” Tony jokes.

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

“You really make getting married sound like a blast,” Tony laughs.

“Don’t get me wrong, I really want to be married to him. I want the whole sickness and health, death do us part deal. But the process sucks,” she sighs, shaking her head as she looks at the room full of relatives, bridesmaids, and groomsmen. “When you get married, just go to Vegas or something, alright?”

“And face the wrath of a Maria Stark that’s been deprived of her only son’s wedding? No, thank you. I don’t need that level of guilt in my life.”

“Yeah, it’s probably not worth it for you,” Natasha smiles. 

_ Definitely not worth it,  _ Tony thinks. Then he asks, only half joking, “So, how much longer do I have to suffer through this before it’s considered socially acceptable for me to leave?”

“Oh, no, you’re staying the entire time. If I’m suffering, you’re suffering, too.”

“But what about Steve? You’re really going to make him go through this, too? He’s an innocent man, Natasha.”

“I’m actually having a decent time,” Steve pipes up. 

“Traitor,” Tony mutters, making Steve laugh. “You’re sleeping on the couch tonight for this.”

It’s an empty threat, because even when he did end up dragging back a ton of sand from the beach with him the night before, Tony still slept in bed next to him without complaint. (The ‘I told you so’ doesn’t count.) 

“Then who would you steal all the blankets from?”

“I wouldn’t have to steal them, because they’d be all mine,” Tony says. “And I am not the blanket thief in this relationship. You steal them first. I simply take them back.”

Steve gives him a doubtful look, “By wrapping them around you like a cocoon?”

“I have to defend myself against future attempts at stealing them.”

“Just admit you only do it to force me into cuddling you.”

“Oh, wow,” Natasha breaks in, and for a moment Tony almost forgot she was there. She unhooks her arm from Tony’s and straightens from the wall she was leaning on. “Getting a sex talk from Sam’s grandma was definitely better than watching you two flirt.”

“We’re not flirting,” Tony tells her again, but she just laughs as she walks away to find Sam amongst all the guests. 

Awkward tension hovers in the air between them with Natasha gone, until Steve clears his throat and asks, “Wanna go tell Sam’s grandma that we met on the set of a porn shoot?”

Tony chokes on air. “Excuse me?”

“Why not?” Steve shrugs, barely concealing his smile. “Seems like it might be a good time.”

Tony gapes, “I truly cannot believe that I ever thought you were a boy scout, Steven. You are actually worse than me, aren’t you?”

“Maybe you just bring it out in me,” Steve grins, bumping Tony’s shoulder with his own. 

“Oh, no, I’m not taking credit for this. If we’re about to give an old lady a heart attack, it’s going down in the record book as your idea and therefore your fault.”

“Didn’t you just tell Natasha to scandalize an old lady? You were the inspiration.”

“Yes, but I like to give all my ideas to other people, because they usually have more common sense than me and filter out the bad ones. You, on the other hand, seem to actually have less common sense than me.”

“It’s not possible to have less common sense than you.”

“You’re a miracle of science, honey. You’ve made the impossible happen.”

Steve rolls his eyes, his smile still intact. “We’re not actually telling his grandma that, dumbass. It was a joke. First of all, I’m unwilling to publicly claim that I had sex with you. Second, I’m pretty sure that one would wind up getting back to your mom.”

“Your jokes suck, Steve,” Tony says, glaring at him. It’s half-hearted, though, because he’s kind of impressed that Steve fooled him like that. “Also, you should be honored that people think you’ve had sex with me. Have you seen my ass? I’m a damn score.”

Steve actually looks over his shoulder, glances at Tony’s ass, and shrugs. “Eh, I’ve seen better.”

Tony’s jaw drops, and Steve looks incredibly pleased with himself for causing it. He seems to like it when he manages to catch Tony by surprise. 

“I’m breaking up with you. Slander is an unacceptable offense.”

Steve laughs, head tilting back with the action. It’s an infectious sound, and Tony finds himself laughing along with him before he knows it.

For a moment, they just stand there, looking at each other with smiles that are a little too wide. Steve’s eyes are bright, crinkled around the edges from the happiness that Tony put there.

_ God, I want to kiss him,  _ Tony thinks. 

Then he realizes what he thought, and it feels like the rug has been swept out from under his feet. His heart thuds violently in his chest, so loud that he wonders if Steve can hear it in the few inches of space between them.

“Are you alright?” Steve asks, concern now etched into his features. 

“Yeah, sorry,” Tony says, swallowing hard even though his mouth has gone completely dry. He looks down at his empty glass and comes up with an easy excuse to walk away. “Just need another drink.”

Steve doesn’t buy it, because he’s definitely right about having more common sense than Tony does. Drastic mood shifts aren’t caused by thirst. But he nods anyway when Tony tells him that he’ll be right back. 

On the way over to the refreshment table, he remembers the bad joke he made for rule number four.  _ Don’t fall in love.  _ Maybe Steve should’ve written that one down after all. 


	12. Chapter 12

On Friday morning, Tony makes the grave mistake of telling Steve to pick any activity he wants to do and claims they’ll do it. 

“Any activity?” Steve asked, toothbrush hanging from his hand as he leaned in the doorway of the bathroom. He was still shirtless, and after last night’s revelations, Tony can’t be faulted for letting himself fall victim to the sight in front of him. 

“Anything at all,” Tony confirmed from his spot on the couch. 

Steve disappeared back into the bathroom for a moment and came back without the toothbrush. “And you won’t complain?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a little?”

“Not one word.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, a dubious expression on his face. “Really?”

“What are you planning that you think I’m going to spend the whole time complaining?” Tony questioned. 

“Did you bring good walking shoes?”

Tony should have known then that he was fucked, but Steve was smiling and his hair was still fluffed from sleep, so he didn’t care at the time. Now, though, one mile into a hike through the Santa Monica Mountains, he regrets agreeing to anything before knowing what it was. 

“How far did you say this trail is?” he asks, pausing briefly to take a long drink from his water bottle. 

“About six miles.”

Tony just barely suppresses his groan. He will not complain, not even if he’s actually dying. He will keep his word, because Steve looked really happy when he said yes to this, and he looks even happier now, with the warm breeze blowing through his hair and the sun shining down on his tanned arms. He looks like he belongs out here, and Tony finds that he doesn’t hate it nearly as much as he thought he would. 

Steve glances at him over his shoulder and offers, “We don’t have to go the full way. We could turn around at the peak if you want. It’s about three miles total that way.”

“No, no, we can do the full thing,” Tony says, waving off the suggestion. He starts walking again, catching back up to where Steve is. “Well, you can. I might collapse and roll down, but either way I end up at the bottom, right?”

Steve laughs, and Tony’s glad that his heart rate is already elevated from the workout so it can’t go any higher at the sound.

“That’s one way to do it.”

“Or,” Tony says, “you could carry me the rest of the way.”

“Or I could push you down the mountain myself.”

“Bucky would never forgive you.”

Steve grins, “He’d understand. You’ve lived together for years. He knows how annoying you are.”

Tony scoffs, “Please, I’m his favorite person.”

“Second favorite.”

“At least you acknowledge that I’m that high up. That’s something, I guess.”

Steve shrugs, hiking up the straps of his backpack. It acted as his carryon on their flight, and now it’s been repurposed for their excursion. “He was talking about you for a long time before I met you. Never doubted that you’re one of his best friends.”

“Just questioned his judgment?”

“I did wonder if the doctors missed a head injury when he came back from Afghanistan,” Steve jokes. Tony laughs, but then Steve turns a touch serious as he asks, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You and Bucky,” he says. “Why did you break up?” 

“He didn’t tell you?”

Steve shakes his head, “No. All I know is that I was hearing about you on the phone for a year, then you’re together, and then you’re not anymore. He never told me why.”

Tony pauses, contemplating that. “Did you ask?”

“When it happened, yeah. But he never really gave an answer. All he said is that it just didn’t work out.”

Tony hums, “And you never considered that that’s just all there was to it?”

“Are you going to answer every question with a question?” 

“I don’t have a better answer for you than the one you already heard,” Tony says. “We tried it, and it didn’t work. We weren’t a good couple, but we’re good friends.”

“That doesn’t make much sense to me.”

Tony sighs, “If I tell you the full story of how we came to that conclusion, you have to promise me you’ll never tell Bucky that I told you.”

That seems to confuse Steve, but he agrees to it anyway. 

“We were taking it slow in the beginning, because it was kind of awkward trying to figure out how to go from friends to…” Tony gestures vaguely in the air, “whatever it was that we were. Our first kiss was honestly probably the worst kiss of my life, but please for the love of God do not ever tell him I said that. I mean, I think he’d probably say the same thing, but still.

“It got a little better after that, but not by much,” Tony continues. “But then - and this is the part that he probably wouldn’t be too thrilled with you knowing about - we had sex.”

“Oh, gross,” Steve grimaces. “I don’t want to know anything about Bucky’s sex life.”

“I’m not going into detail,” Tony laughs. “But it’s a pretty important part of the story so hush.” 

Steve mimes zipping his lips and tossing the key off into the desert shrubbery around them. 

“I know for a fact that it was the worst sex of my life, and I swear that’s not a commentary on his skill level at all. I’m sure he’s just fine with people that aren’t me. There’s just - have you ever been with someone that you had absolutely no chemistry with? It doesn’t matter how much you like each other or how much you want it to work, because it’s gonna suck anyway.”

“So that’s why it didn’t work?” Steve asks. “No chemistry?”

“That and both of us just missed our friendship. We basically didn’t talk for a full week after we had sex, because neither one of us wanted to be the one to admit that it was terrible. I missed what we had before we tried to make it something more, and he did, too. So we just went back to it.”

“And that’s all there was? No ugly break up, no broken hearts?”

Tony gives Steve a questioning look, then his eyes go wide as he realizes, “That’s why you hated me, isn’t it? You thought I broke his heart.”

Steve looks down at the dirt path beneath their feet. “Well, that and what happened the night we met.”

Tony is puzzled by the statement. In his memory of that night, Steve pretty much hated him from the second he opened his mouth, and it only went downhill from there. They were at a bar with some other friends, and Bucky introduced Steve to all of them at once. He seemed to get along just fine with everyone but Tony. 

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Did something happen that night and I missed it?”

“You flirted with me.”

“Oh,” Tony says, frowning. He sort of remembers doing that right at the beginning. It was some line about a man in uniform, because Steve was fresh out of the army. Not his best or most original work, he’ll admit, but certainly not enough to warrant outright hatred. “That was a bad thing?”

“You and Bucky had only been broken up for a couple of weeks, and you did it right in front of him,” Steve explains. “Made me think you were a real asshole for flirting with your ex’s friends while he was sitting right there.”

Tony nods, reconsidering that night. It’s strange to think how much would have been different if he’d just used a different opening line. Then he remembers, “You know Bucky went home with our waitress that night, right?”

“What? Are you serious?” Steve sputters. 

“Yeah, I had to listen to the damn bed springs for like an hour. She was really fucking loud, too.”

Steve laughs, “Oh, God. That’s horrible.”

“It’s like she was trying to imitate a porn star.” 

Tony grins as Steve laughs harder, until his eyes are a little glossy and he’s out of breath, and Tony has no choice but to join in. 

But then Tony sobers up, and he has to ask, “So I get why you didn’t like me at first, but what about after that? Bucky and I were still friends. We still lived together. That didn’t make you reconsider?”

Steve gives him a sheepish, apologetic smile. “I’m sure you know enough about me by now to know that I’m pretty damn stubborn. I don’t really change my mind that easily. It was like once I decided that I wasn’t going to like you, I kept looking for reasons to keep it that way.”

“Well, I’m sure I gave you plenty.”

“Actually it got harder and harder to hate you the longer I knew you,” Steve says. “Yeah, you could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but most of the time…”

Steve trails off with a shrug, and Tony stays quiet, hoping he’ll finish the thought. He doesn’t disappoint. 

“Most of the time I was trying to convince myself that I shouldn’t like you as much as I really did. Like when Bucky had the flu, and I came over and saw you making him soup. You were on the phone with your mom and you kept saying that it had to be authentic or it wouldn’t work. It was really, really hard to hate you right then.”

Tony remembers that, smiling at the image in his head of Bucky on their couch, wrapped in a mound of blankets with only his face sticking out while Tony tried everything to convince him to eat something. He turns into an overgrown baby when he’s sick, and Tony finally had to cave and call Steve for reinforcement. 

“So if I had just been a little less myself that first night, or if Bucky would have just told you the full story, we would have been friends this whole time?”

“Maybe,” Steve sighs, running his hand through his hair. “Probably.”

“That sucks.”

Steve smiles, bittersweet, “Yeah, it does. But I could have changed it, too. There’s a lot of what ifs.”

Tony nods and says, “Sorry I flirted with you.”

“Sorry I assumed you were an asshole.”

“In all fairness, it was a decent assumption.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Steve says, tone serious in contrast to the lightness of Tony’s own. “You’re not - you’re a good person.”

Tony doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing at all. He lets that branch of conversation reach its natural end as they continue their trek up the mountain. 

Then he switches it to something else, seemingly out of the blue. “Hey, did you know that some experts believe that there are more than a thousand unidentified serial killers out there right now?”

“If this is turning into a confession, I don’t think I want to hear it.”

Tony grins, “You’re the one who told me I’m not capable of murder.”

“Well, I’ve clearly been wrong about you in the past,” Steve teases. “Why are you telling me this, though?”

“Because I think the odds of there being at least one dead body in these mountains are pretty high.”

“Let’s hope you don’t give me a reason to add another one.”

Tony laughs, the sound seeming louder in the open air. He feels lighter now, relieved to know that Steve is actually his friend. That they’re capable of having a good relationship. 

He just hopes he can get control of his feelings before they complicate things. 


	13. Chapter 13

Natasha’s bachelorette party is unsurprisingly a lowkey affair. Tony gets an Uber to a dive bar somewhere between Malibu and LA, knowing that he’ll be in no state to drive himself back later. 

His legs feel a bit like jelly as he walks into the bar, even after the long nap he took when he got back to the hotel after his hike with Steve. That nap is the reason he’s running late. Steve was supposed to wake him up, but that was a little hard to do when he ended up falling asleep, too, with his chest pressed to Tony’s back. He found that he didn’t really care, though, when that was what he got to wake up to.

Natasha is already here, camped out between the dart board and pool tables with her bridesmaids that he recognizes from yesterday’s rehearsal dinner. He doesn’t really know them all that well, though he’s heard stories about each. Two of them teach at the same ballet studio as her, while the other is Sam’s sister. 

The ordeal of picking bridesmaids was the first time Natasha wished she could have eloped. Tony remembers that phone call rather fondly, when she realized that all of her close friends are men. 

“Hey,” Natasha grins when she spots him approaching. She steps away from her friends and wraps him in a hug. He kisses her cheek as she says, “Thank God you’re here.”

“Why are we thanking God?”

“Because someone else needs to be responsible for making sure Sam’s sister doesn’t go home with that guy,” Natasha says, hooking her thumb over her shoulder near the corner of the bar where Sam’s sister - whose name he can’t remember right now for the life of him - is flirting with some guy in a neon yellow shirt with a truly terrible mustache. “I swear that girl has some of the worst taste I’ve ever seen.”

Tony laughs, “Yeah, that’s definitely questionable. Seems pretty innocuous, though.”

“For now,” she agrees. They both watch as the guy completely fails at what should have been an easy pool shot and shake their heads. 

“C’mon,” Tony says, taking her hand and leading her over to the bar. “I owe you a celebration drink.”

“Yes, you do.”

They sit together at the bar, separated from the other patrons by an empty seat on both sides. He orders for both of them and starts up a tab, telling the bartender to put everything that Natasha drinks for the rest of the night on it, too. 

While they wait for their drinks, they watch Sam’s sister and yellow shirt guy continue their game of pool. She seems to be less into him, though, with every passing second, and Tony’s glad to know he doesn’t actually have to worry about it. 

“So,” Natasha starts after the drinks have arrived. She puts down her glass and spins in her barstool to look at him more directly. “What’s up with you and Steve?”

“Nope, not talking about that.” He tosses back the entirety of his drink and waves to get the bartender’s attention to order another.

“Are we drinking about it, then?”

“We are,” he confirms as the bartender makes his way over. 

Natasha waits until his new drink is in his hand before she asks, “So you finally realized that you have a massive crush on him and have for a really long time?”

“A long time? What are you talking about? It’s been less than forty eight hours.”

“Tony, I could see the sexual tension between you two over text,” she shakes her head. “You flat out told me once that you think the hate sex with him would be the hottest thing to ever happen to you.”

“It would’ve been,” he defends. He takes another swallow of the whisky. “But he doesn’t hate me anymore, and apparently he never really did. He just thought I was an asshole.”

“Well, that’s true.”

Tony laughs, “That’s what I said, too. And do you want to know what he said?”

“What?”

“He called me a good person.”

Natasha wrinkles her nose, “Oh, yeah, we’re definitely drinking about this. And we’re going to need something a lot stronger.”

She calls the bartender back over and orders two shots of tequila for each of them. Holding one shot glass up, she clinks it with his and knocks it back. They do the same with the next shot, and Tony says, “Alright, twenty more of those, and I should be all set.”

“Twenty more of those, and you’ll be passed out on the floor.”

“But at least I can’t think about Steve and his stupid face if I’m unconscious.”

Natasha giggles, and Tony knows that the alcohol is hitting her, because she would never make that sound sober. “Please, tell me all about Steve’s stupid face.” 

“That would be talking about it, and we’re not doing that.”

She pushes on his shoulder and pouts, “No, you have to tell me all about your love life. Mine is boring now, and I need to live the drama vicariously through you.”

“Boring, huh?” he teases, fully aware that she’s joking. For as much as she pretends to hate any sort of soft feeling, he’s been on the receiving end of too many monologues about how perfect Sam is to believe any of it. 

“Yes, it’s stable and happy, and that’s disgusting.” 

“Poor you with your wonderful committed relationship.”

“Exactly,” she sighs. “Now come on, give me something entertaining.”

“If I’m telling you about any of this, I need another shot.”

Natasha grins as she gets him another one, wisely not taking one for herself. He feels warm from all the alcohol, but it’s too soon to actually be drunk. He’s just… loose. 

Loose enough to tell her about everything that happened with Howard, which leads into the beach with Steve. That was probably the most noticeable shift in his feelings, when he realized that being with Steve felt safe. It was the beginning of the end, and it only took another day for the feeling to blossom into full blown desire. 

“You went hiking for him?” Natasha laughs, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. They’ve been slowly nursing their latest round of drinks for a while now, though he’s lost count of how many they’ve had. The storytelling took up quite a bit of time. “You don’t even like the outdoors. You’re an indoor boy.”

“Shut up,” Tony says, laughing along with her. “I was vulnerable and weak. You didn’t see his face.” 

“His stupid face,” she says solemnly. 

“It’s so stupid. Why couldn’t Bucky find some ugly friends?”

“Oh, please, if it was just his looks you would have been all over him for the last year.”

“According to you, I was.”

Natasha shakes her head, setting her glass down on the bar again. Her coordination is a little rough, and it hits the counter hard enough that Tony winces. 

“No, I said the sexual tension was always around, but you didn’t actually want anything real with him. You like him as a person now.”

“You know, I don’t like that you became the relationship expert between the two of us. It’s wrong. We’re both supposed to be disasters.”

Natasha smiles and wraps her arm around him, putting her chin on his shoulder. “But look at it this way, if there’s hope for me, that means there’s hope for you, too.”

“Nope,” he says. He swallows down the rest of his drink. “Because the fact that I like Steve doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t want me.”

Her brow furrows. “Why wouldn’t he want you?”

“You met him.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And he’s amazing.”

“So?”

“So he can do a lot better than me.”

Natasha groans, dropping her arms from his shoulders to bury her face in her hands. “How are you this dumb?”

“Well, that’s rude,” he snorts. 

She stands, only a little shaky, and takes his hand. “C’mon, we’re going to go play pool with my bridesmaids, who I probably shouldn’t have ditched for that long.”

“You’re the bride. You can do what you want.”

“You are literally the only person who seems to agree with that somehow.”

They switch back and forth between pool and darts, with some sort of drinking game with very confusing rules thrown in the middle. Time seems to pass very quickly that way, and for a while, he doesn’t have to think about anything except trying to steady his hand enough to not kill someone with a dart. 

They talk about Sam a lot, with Natasha waxing poetic about his eyes for an unbelievably long time. This many drinks in, all of her inhibitions are gone. She cries at one point, then promptly threatens to stab Tony if he ever tells anyone about it. Basically the entire bar saw it, but he agrees to keep her secret anyway. 

He isn’t sure how late it is by the time they decide to call it a night. But the sky is pitch black as he waits outside with Natasha and her friends for their rides. They all share one Uber, while Tony gets his own a minute later. 

On the ride back to the hotel, he closes his eyes to avoid seeing the flickering lights that make him dizzy. It seems he only ever remembers too late that drinking to avoid problems is good in theory only. And it really doesn’t work well when his problems are waiting for him in the bed they’re sharing.

Yeah, he really didn’t think that one through. 

At the hotel, Tony tries to get the room key into the slot, but blurry vision complicates the first try, and he swears the slot actually moves on the second. He swears at it, kicks the bottom of the door in a fit of annoyance when he misses again on the third time. The walls are starting to spin a little, and he rests his forehead on the door for the fourth attempt. 

And suddenly he’s falling into something very solid. 

“Woah,” he says, dragging out the word. The solid thing grips him by the upper arms, and he now realizes that it’s Steve, holding him upright in the entry to their room. 

Steve’s holding most of his weight, not even straining under it, and Tony’s mind echoes the  _ woah  _ again. 

Except maybe he says it out loud. 

“You’re so strong,” Tony says. The words are a little slurred, but Steve hopefully gets the point anyway. “That’s hot.”

Steve smiles and shakes his head. “And you are so drunk.”

“Yes,” Tony agrees, nodding seriously. “Yes, I am.”

“Okay, we’re going to get you into bed.”

Steve shifts so his arm is around Tony’s waist and directs him into the bedroom. Part of Tony wants to protest that he’s perfectly capable of walking on his own, but instead he lets Steve continue to support his weight and maybe even leans into him a little more than necessary. But who can really blame him for wanting to press his face into Steve’s bare chest? It’s warm and firm, and Tony can faintly hear the sound of his heart beating and feel the rise and fall of it as he breathes. 

He kind of forgets he was supposed to be walking at all until Steve amusedly questions, “Can you wait to pass out until you’re not standing?”

“You won’t let me fall.”

“You sound very confident about that.”

“I am,” Tony says. By now they’ve stumbled their way through the living room and into the bedroom, where Steve guides him to sit on the edge of the bed. 

Steve kneels down, unlacing Tony’s shoes for him and pulling them off. Putting them off to the side, he strips him of his socks next. 

“Take your jacket off,” Steve instructs gently. “You’re not going to want to sleep in that.”

He clumsily removes the leather jacket, and Steve takes it from his hand to place neatly on top of the dresser. 

He slides back to get in bed, but the fabric of his jeans rubs against him uncomfortably, so he decides they need to go, too. The shirt goes next, because it’s making him feel too warm.

Only when he’s down to just his boxer briefs does he get under the covers. Or at least he tries to, but he can’t get them over himself while he’s on top of them, leading to a struggle while he pulls and they don’t move.

“Steve,” he whines. “Help me. Don’t laugh at me.”

Steve composes himself, biting his lip to stop his laughter, then pulls the blankets to the side so Tony can get beneath them. 

Tony can only hope that he’s drunk enough to not remember what he does next in the morning. Right now, he isn’t ashamed to stretch out his arms toward Steve or to lay half of his body on top of Steve’s. Right now, it seems perfectly acceptable to tuck his face into the crook of Steve’s neck and breathe in a little too deeply. 

He burrows in as closely as he can, sighing when Steve begins to gently stroke his hair. “That’s nice.”

The alcohol is making him drowsy, so he might be imagining it when Steve presses his lips to the crown of Tony’s head. It could be all in his head when the last thing he hears right before he drifts off is, “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

But more than anything he hopes it’s real.


	14. Chapter 14

Tony wakes up with a pounding in his head and what feels like a lump of cotton in his mouth. He groans, burying his face back into his pillow. Except his pillow is Steve’s shoulder and doesn’t have the same give as an actual pillow would. His nose is mashed into Steve’s collarbone, twisted at a strange angle, but he doesn’t mind. 

“What are you doing?” Steve asks in a grumble, half asleep. He moves, shifting his body a little so he’s turned a bit in Tony’s direction. His arms, which were already around Tony’s body, tighten their hold and pull him in closer. “Go back to sleep.”

Tony isn’t awake enough to fully realize just how weird this should be, and neither, it seems, is Steve. Or maybe they both realize on some level and don’t care. It’s something they haven’t talked about since that first morning, but it’s happened every night of the past week. 

Until last night, it wasn’t intentional. They went to sleep on their separate sides, a wide berth of space between them, then woke up in various cuddled positions. Usually it was Tony’s head on Steve’s chest. Once it was Steve’s head on Tony’s shoulder, and Tony liked that more than he will ever admit. That morning they woke up on Tony’s side of the bed, rather than in the middle as usual, meaning that Steve was the one that had gravitated toward him. It makes his heart skip a beat now to even think about.

Tony tilts his chin up, catching a glimpse of Steve’s face. He looks peaceful, his breathing slow and even. There’s something inexplicably wonderful about the fact that he gets to see Steve like this. 

_ Vulnerable,  _ Tony thinks. That’s what it is. He’s never quite gotten to see him like that before, with no facade or careful control. But over the last week he’s seen it more and more. He doesn’t want it to end, terrified of what will happen when they go back to New York. It won’t go back to the way it was before, but it won’t ever be quite like this again. 

A few days ago he couldn’t wait for this to end. Now he wants this last day to go on forever. 

He wants to keep the casual touches and easy conversation. The way Steve laughs at his jokes now, even when they aren’t very good, and the way they can tease each other without anyone getting hurt. He wants the mornings and brushing their teeth next to each other at the bathroom sink. He wants the safety of being in Steve’s arms, his heartbeat just beneath his fingertips, sounding like a lullaby.

He won’t be able to take the distance when they go back. He can’t go back to sitting at opposite ends of the table when they go out with their friends. Not when he knows what it feels like to have Steve’s shoulder pressed against his own and Steve’s hand on his knee. He doesn’t want a cold bed, doesn’t want to continue his string of short-lived and failed relationships. Doesn’t want to watch when Steve inevitably shares the parts of himself with someone else, not when Tony just got access to them for himself. Because Steve will carry on like none of this really mattered, but Tony won’t be able to move on.

He doesn’t know how to let this go, but he knows it can’t go on. Their relationship has an expiration date, and it’s just a few hours away. 

“I told you to go back to sleep,” Steve murmurs, startling Tony out of his melancholy thoughts. “Stop thinking so much.”

“I’m not. No thoughts here.”

“Liar,” Steve says, voice strangely fond. “You’re a very loud thinker.”

His hand strokes down Tony’s back, raising goosebumps along his bare skin. Tony sighs, and the tension slowly releases from his muscles. 

“What are you thinking about?”

Tony doesn’t know how to answer that without giving himself away. So he lies, “Nothing, really. It’s just - it’s weird, you know. That Nat’s getting married today.”

“Yeah, I bet it is.” He doesn’t stop moving his hand, even though he’s more awake now and has to be fully cognizant of what he’s doing. Tony doesn’t know what to think about that. False hope is probably worse than the knowledge that nothing will ever actually happen. 

“Did you have fun last night?”

Tony nods, a stilted movement complicated by the way he’s still pressed against Steve’s shoulder. 

“Certainly seemed like,” Steve says, and Tony can hear the smile in his voice. “You must have quite the hangover right now.”

Tony shrugs with one shoulder. “It’s not great, but I’ve had worse.” 

“There’s some aspirin and a bottle of water on the nightstand.”

Tony lifts his head, glancing over Steve’s arm, then frowns. “When did that get there?”

Steve’s cheeks tint pink. “I went out for a bit last night, just walking around. Passed by a store and thought you might need it.”

The false hopes flares up again at the idea of Steve thinking about him when he’s not around. But they’re friends now, he reminds himself. And friends do nice things for each other without it meaning anything more. Steve would do the exact same thing for Bucky, probably has done it multiple times before. 

“Thank you,” Tony says, realizing he’s been quiet for too long. 

“Of course.”

Tony drops his head back down, into Steve’s embrace. The painkillers can wait for now. He’s willing to suffer a while longer with the headache if it means he gets to draw out this moment.

Steve is right, though. He’s thinking far too much, drawing up possibilities and dashing them away just as quickly. He’ll drive himself insane before the day is over if he keeps it up, and he still has a wedding to survive. 

Closing his eyes again, he tries to push all the thoughts out. But then Steve says, “So it’s our last day here.”

“Last day,” Tony echoes. “You’ll be free of me in a few hours.”

“Free of you? You say that like you’re an inconvenience.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do.”

Tony can’t bring himself to look at Steve, but he knows exactly what Steve’s face would look like if he did. The furrow between his brows would be deep, the corners of his mouth downturned in that way that makes his full bottom lip jut out. A lot confused and a little upset. Tony’s awfully skilled at bringing that look out. 

Tony bites the inside of his cheek. “You won’t have to pretend to like me anymore.”

“But I do like you. Didn’t we already have this discussion?” 

“Yeah, sure. But that’s as your best friend’s friend,” Tony says, forcing himself to sound neutral. “You don’t have to pretend that it’s more after today.”

There’s a long pause, and Tony’s brain is screaming at him to put an end to this conversation. It’s dangerous, and he’s about ten seconds away from confessing everything, from telling Steve that he wishes it wasn’t pretend.

“Tony,” Steve finally starts, voice soft. 

Tony cuts him off. He throws the blanket off of himself and rolls out of bed. “We should probably start getting ready. Shower, breakfast, and all that. Do you mind if I go first?”

From the doorway, Tony stops and looks back at Steve, whose expression is unreadable. It takes a few seconds for the response to come. 

“No, you go ahead.”

Tony nods, then leaves the room with an uneasy feeling in his chest. 

_ One more day.  _


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter :) just the epilogue remains!

Things are quiet between them for the rest of the morning. They don’t talk much while eating their room service breakfast, and the daytime talk show playing on the television acts as their source of conversation topics when they do. It stays that way on the drive to the venue, with the radio playing on a low volume to fill the silence. 

Tony hates it, but he doesn’t know what to say. Steve, it seems, doesn’t have anything to say, either. Well, he figures, it really is the beginning of the end. 

At least the wedding requires silence. Until they’re at the reception, that is, sitting around many of the same people from the rehearsal dinner. There isn’t much to say to any of them, leaving him with just Steve.

“Natasha’s dress is really beautiful, isn’t it?” Tony comments near the end of dinner. 

Steve raises an eyebrow. “You’ve already said that. Twice.”

“Well,” Tony shrugs awkwardly. “It’s true.”

Steve answers with a hum, leaning back in his chair. His hand comes to rest on Tony’s knee, thumb rubbing circles into his skin through the fabric. 

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, voice quiet so no one else can overhear. Not that anyone is looking at them, anyway. His mom is talking to one of Natasha’s uncles, animatedly gesturing with her hands. Everyone else is either occupied with dinner or their own conversations. 

“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seem…” 

Steve trails off, prompting Tony to ask, “What? How do I seem?”

“Not yourself. But I don’t know if it’s the wedding or if it’s me.”

“Why would it be the wedding?” Tony frowns. He’s happy for Natasha and Sam, isn’t even too proud to admit that their vows made him cry. 

“So it’s me.” Steve’s face is neutral enough, but his jaw is tight. 

Tony shakes his head, “No, it’s - you haven’t done anything.”

“We just, we seemed fine yesterday.”

“And we’re fine today.” 

“But you’re not fine,” Steve says firmly, determined. Tony knows him well enough by now to know that he won’t let this go. 

“I’m completely fine. Excellent, even.” 

Steve gives him a disbelieving look. Apparently Tony’s acting skills could use some work, because he’s doing a bad job at pretending to be normal. 

“You could just tell me, you know. Whatever’s bothering you. We’re -” Steve breaks off, quickly glances around to make sure Tony’s mom is truly not paying attention to them. “We’re friends.”

“It’s really nothing,” Tony insists. 

Steve keeps his eyes locked on Tony’s for a while, as if he could see the truth if he looks long enough. Eventually, he gives a reluctant nod and lets it drop. 

Tony places his hand over Steve’s, still on his knee, and squeezes it in thanks. Steve offers a small smile, and Tony gives one in return. 

“Dear,” his mother’s voice breaks into their conversation, and he’s grateful for it, “tell Alexei about that project you’ve been working on. The one you were telling me about the other day.”

Tony sees it for what it is - an opportunity to show off his accomplishments - which means that Natasha’s uncle must have been bragging about his own children just before. There’s no way he actually cares about the learning bot Tony’s been perfecting over the course of several months, but Tony jumps into it anyway. He’ll never squander a chance to talk about DUM-E. 

He talks about the coding, simplifying it as much as he can, and all the things it should be able to do when it’s finally finished. Right now, it manages to do little more than handshakes, but eventually, it should respond to basic commands and follows directions. ‘Should’ being the operative word. 

When he’s done with it, he looks over to find Steve smiling at him. A real, genuine smile that he doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve.

“What?” Tony asks. 

Steve shakes his head, but the smile doesn’t fade. “Nothing. I just - I like hearing you talk about your work. You don’t do it very often.”

Tony shrugs, “People don’t ask very often.”

“They should.” 

Steve says it like a fact, no room for argument, so Tony doesn’t. He swallows, ducking his head and reaching for his drink to give himself something to do. Luckily, the toasts start just after that, and Steve’s attention goes elsewhere. 

The first dance follows, and shortly after that Steve excuses himself to the restroom while the rest of the guests slowly trickle onto the dance floor. He kisses Tony’s cheek before he goes, and it makes Tony’s chest ache. He wonders how many of those he has left. 

“You haven’t told him yet, have you?” 

Tony flinches at the sudden intrusion of his mom’s voice into his thoughts. “Told him what?”

“How you feel.”

He analyzes her face, searching for the trick, because her statement makes no sense to him. But she gives nothing away this time. Tony fakes a laugh, “Of course I have. He’s my boyfriend. He knows.”

Her laugh is genuine. “Tony, do you honestly think you’re capable of fooling me? You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

His blood freezes in his veins. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that you are not currently and nor have you ever been in a relationship with that boy.”

“Excuse me?” He decides quickly to play dumb, possibly verging on offended if she outright accuses his relationship of being a sham. 

She doesn’t look upset, but rather amused. “You have never once kept one of your relationships from me. Not even the ones you probably should have been ashamed of. We all remember Sunset.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that she turned out to be a cult member.”

“You should have known from the name, darling,” Maria smiles. “But that is not the point. We both know you and Steve aren’t together, just as we both know that you wish that wasn’t the case.”

Tony thinks about sticking to his guns, really going all in, but instead he sighs and asks, “How did you know?”

“Your boyfriend conveniently only existed a few weeks ago, right when you needed him to. And as I said, you don’t keep these things from me.”

“Maybe I just didn’t want to tell you about him yet.”

She elects to ignore that, since they both know that wouldn’t have happened. If they were really together, she would have been one of the first to know. 

“He likes you, too.”

“Nope,” Tony says. He averts his gaze so he doesn’t have to face her. Watching Natasha happily spin around in Sam’s arms, he continues, “We’re just friends. He’s a good actor.”

Her hand lands on his shoulder. “No, I don’t think he is, and neither are you.”

Tentatively, he asks, “Is it that obvious? That I like him, I mean.”

“To me, yes.” He turns to look at her and finds her smiling softly at him in that way only mothers do. “To him, well, he’s probably just as scared as you are that the feeling isn’t mutual.” 

“Or it’s just not mutual. Why would it be? We hardly knew each other before this.”

She shakes her head, “He cares for you. He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t.”

He thinks about it, letting that thought sink in. It would explain some things, like the way Steve agreed to this far too easily. He never quite accepted Bucky’s explanation for it, nor Steve’s. Not even good people care enough about the feelings of random mothers they’ve never met before to spend a week lying to them. And it would explain all of the physical contact Steve has never complained about, and, sometimes, actually initiated, even when they weren’t pretending. 

He wants to believe it so badly that he can’t let himself actually do it, because he knows he’s reading too much into things in order to make it seem real. His perception is skewed, biased by feelings that have been brewing just under the surface for God only knows how long. Maybe Steve agreed because he wanted to be friends, and maybe Steve is just a tactile person. Maybe he’s too polite to reject the contact from Tony. There’s too many maybes and not enough definites. 

Maria brushes a hand through his hair. “You’re overthinking, bambino. It’s not that complicated.”

“He’s Bucky’s best friend,” Tony sighs, leaning back into the reassuring touch. “It is that complicated.”

“Bucky would mind if you dated him?”

“Bucky would mind if I told Steve that I like him and made everything awkward because Steve rejected me. And then I really would have to move to Switzerland.” 

“Then it’s a wonderful thing that he won’t reject you. You’d hate Switzerland.”

Tony laughs, “I think I could grow to like it.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she laughs with him. “Now, he’s on his way back, and you’re going to ask him to dance.”

“Oh, God,” he groans. “Do I have to?”

She smirks, “Listen to your mother. I’m always right.”

“This could be the one percent of the time when you’re wrong.”

“And if it is, I’ll help you pack for Switzerland.”

She leans forward, presses a kiss to his forehead, then wipes away the smudge of lipstick it leaves behind with her thumb. Standing from the table, she walks away just before Steve reappears at his side. 

Steve pulls out his chair, sitting back down. “Sorry I took so long. This place does not have enough bathrooms.”

“They never do.” Tony forces a smile, trying to ignore the jumble of nerves making a home in his stomach. “Um, it’d probably be weird if we don’t dance together at some point. I mean, it’ll be weird for us when we do, but I just mean that it would seem weird, you know, to my mom if we don’t.”

Steve’s returning smile is kind and sweet, and it makes Tony want to either run away or kiss him right now. He can’t decide which option would appear more insane.

“You could just ask me to dance like a normal person.”

Tony blushes, “Yeah, but I’m not all that normal.”

“I guess not,” Steve says. He looks over his shoulder at the dance floor. The current song is fading away into something slower, and Steve stands again, holding out his hand. “Shall we?”

Tony takes a deep breath and nods, placing his hand in Steve’s and letting him lead them to the dance floor.

Steve’s hands are warm where they cover Tony’s waist, burning into his skin it seems. Tony has one arm around Steve’s neck, the other hand placed on Steve’s shoulder. 

They aren’t dancing so much as swaying, but neither of them minds. Tony doesn’t like to dance, and Steve admitted to him at the rehearsal dinner that he doesn’t really know how. This works for them, standing with no space between them as they turn in slow circles. His forehead is resting on Steve’s collarbone, and if he closes his eyes, he can pretend that it’s all real. 

He wants to tell Steve the truth, right here, right now. The words are lodged in the back of his throat, just waiting for him to work up the courage to let them free. 

But then Steve might say no, and they’re stuck together for the rest of the night. And Steve will still be pretending, but he’ll know that Tony isn’t. The flight tomorrow will be horribly uncomfortable for both of them. Tony supposes he could just change his flight, let Steve make the trip back by himself if it takes a turn for the worse.

“You’re thinking too much again,” Steve whispers. His head is tucked down, and his lips brush against the top of Tony’s ear. “Are you going to tell me the truth this time when I ask what about?”

“I wasn’t lying before.”

“You were,” Steve says. He lifts his hand, cupping Tony’s jaw. His thumb strokes across his cheek, coaxing Tony to look up at him. “But I bet I could guess what it actually was. Will you tell me if I get it right?”

“Alright,” Tony agrees easily, “but I don’t think you will.”

“I think I will, because I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

Steve pulls him in closer, holding him so Tony’s chin is resting on his shoulder, arms wrapped around him tight. He can’t see Steve’s face anymore, and Tony thinks that maybe that was the point. This close, he wonders if Steve can feel how fast his heart is beating.

“When I told you that I was looking for reasons not to like you, it was more than the fact that I didn’t want to be friends with Bucky’s ex. At first, yeah, that’s all it was. But eventually it was easier to keep hating you than it was to admit that I wished I had gotten to you first. I couldn’t have you, because you were already his once. I couldn’t do that to him when I thought he was in love with you. 

“I avoided you so I wouldn’t have to think about it. You were right when you said I used to leave rooms when you walked into them, but not for the reasons you were thinking. I didn’t want to know you any more than I already did, because it just made it harder. But at the same time I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to be with you.

“Honestly, that’s why I came here. You walked into my apartment, and you looked so flustered. You were doing that rambling thing that you do when you’re nervous, and I couldn’t say no to you, even though I knew this would suck for me.

“But it’s actually been one of the best weeks I can remember having in a really long time. I like holding your hand and waking up next to you and getting to see the way you smile in your sleep sometimes. More than anything I’ve loved not having to hide how I feel, and I don’t want to keep hiding it when we go home tomorrow.”

Steve pulls back, taking Tony’s face back into his hand. At this point, they’ve given up all illusion of dancing. They stand together on the outer edge of the dance floor, sharing this moment as though no one else is around. 

“You said this morning that I only think of you as Bucky’s friend, but that isn’t true. It hasn’t been true for a long time. I think you were deflecting, and I think you jumped out of bed so quickly because you were scared that I would agree. But if you had just waited second, I could have told you all of this right then.”

Steve smiles crookedly, “Well, maybe not quite all of this, because honestly this is a little rehearsed. You gave me a lot of time to think when you walked away.”

“What would you have said this morning?” Tony asks, needing to know what could have been if he hadn’t freaked out.

Steve bites his lip, looking suddenly nervous for someone who’s already confessed so much. “I would have told you that I never meant a single one of the terrible things I said to you, and I only ever said them to cover up the truth, which is that I’ve been half in love with you for months now. If I can only ever have you as a friend, I can learn to be okay with that. But I think that you want the same thing that I do. Do you?”

Tony laughs, a touch hysterical. Steve’s face falls for just a moment before Tony says, “Are you telling me that I was suffering all day for no reason? That I could have had you for real this morning?”

Steve’s face splits with a wide smile. “You could have had me whenever, really. I’ve been yours for quite a while.”

“Damn,” Tony shakes his head in his disbelief. “I really am as stupid as Natasha says. Don’t tell her she was right.”

Steve tilts his head down, resting his forehead against Tony’s. His voice is low when he says, “You said you’d tell me if I was right, but you haven’t yet.”

“Oh, sorry,” Tony whispers. 

He doesn’t give a verbal confirmation, because words aren’t necessary any more. Steve has already said all that needs to be said. All that’s left is to angle his chin up, place his hand on the back of Steve’s neck, and pull him in the rest of the way for a kiss.


	16. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so when I started this, I told myself it would be around 15,000 words. this just goes to show that I'm bad at planning.
> 
> anyway, here's an epilogue :)

_ One Year Later _

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” Bucky shakes his head, standing in the middle of Tony’s now empty bedroom. Only the basic furniture is left, because he doesn’t need it. Steve’s - no,  _ their _ \- apartment is already fully furnished. He’s leaving behind the bed and end table for Clint to have when he moves in next week. 

Everything else is already packed, and the majority of it is already at his new apartment. His clothes had mostly migrated to Steve’s even before the official move in, taking up half of the closet before either of them realized it was happening. 

Tony laughs, setting the last box of his things on the bed. He sits down next to it, leaning back on his hands. “You’re acting like we’re never going to see each other again. I’m only moving two blocks away, and it’s with your best friend.”

“But now I have to live with Clint.”

Bucky flops down on the bed, laying back. Tony copies him so they’re laying side by side, the box between them. 

“You’re the one who asked him to move in.” 

“He’ll never pick up his socks.”

Tony smiles, “If you trained me, you can train him, too.”

“No, he’s unbreakable. You have a naturally guilty conscience. He doesn’t know shame or guilt.”

“Get a squirt bottle and spray him with water.”

Bucky makes a face like he’s actually thinking about it. “Do you think that would work?”

“I think it would be fun even if it doesn’t.”

“That’s true.”

“Stop plotting against Clint.” Tony sits up at the sound of Steve’s amused voice and finds him in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He reaches his arms out, making grabby hands, and Steve crosses the distance between them to step into them. 

Tony pulls him down, dragging him into a kiss. 

“I’m gonna get that squirt bottle and spray you two every time you make me have to witness this shit,” Bucky says. He fails at sounding genuinely annoyed, though, and Tony knows that he isn’t. He’s been supportive of them from the start, which was a relief after he spent most of the plane ride back from Malibu a year ago panicking that Bucky would disapprove. But he only laughed when they told them about it and claimed he always knew this would happen. 

“That would only encourage me,” Tony shoots back. “Steve looks hot with wet hair.”

“Ugh, don’t tell me that.”

Steve straightens back up with a smile, bringing Tony up with him by the hands. “Are you ready to go, sweetheart?”

Tony grins and wraps his arms around Steve’s shoulders. “All set.” 

He leans up on his tiptoes to press a kiss to the tip of Steve’s nose. Dropping back down, he grabs the box from the bed, but Steve takes it from him and tucks it under his arm. 

“Such a gentleman,” Tony teases. 

From the bed, Bucky grumbles, “No, he’s not. He’s a punk and a roommate thief.”

“I’m very sorry for asking my boyfriend to move in with me,” Steve says sarcastically. 

Bucky stands, clapping his hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I’ll forgive you as long as I get to be the best man at the wedding.”

“Can you let him propose first before you stake claims?” Tony jokes. 

“Please, I’ve had this claim staked since elementary school.” Bucky pulls Tony into a hug after that and says in his ear, “I’m gonna miss you.”

Tony rolls his eyes as they separate, if only to keep from getting emotional about it. “You’re literally coming over for dinner tomorrow.”

Steve gives Bucky a one-arm hug, and a few more fond insults between the two of them later, they manage to get out the door. 

On the sidewalk, Steve holds Tony’s hand in his, twining their fingers together. Tony puts his other hand on the inside of Steve’s elbow and kisses his shoulder through his t-shirt. 

“He’s going to kill Clint within a week, isn’t he?”

Steve laughs, “I give it two days.”

“You know, Bucky said the same thing about us before we left for California.”

“Are you implying they’ll be a couple by the end of the week?”

Tony shrugs, “Stranger things have happened.”

Steve tilts his head down and presses his lips to Tony’s forehead. A full year and the simple gestures still have the power to overwhelm him sometimes. 

“So if Bucky is my best man, will Rhodey be yours?”

Tony raises an eyebrow, “Are you proposing?”

“Not right now,” Steve smiles. “But we’re getting there, aren’t we?”

Tony nods, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. The idea of marrying Steve fills him with warmth. It’s almost too good to be true, and sometimes it’s hard to believe that he gets to have any of this. 

Tony rests his head on Steve’s shoulder as they continue down the sidewalk, and it’s almost a full block later that he says, “Hey, Steve?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“The answer’s yes,” he says, looking up into blue eyes that always make him think of home. “Whenever you ask. It’s a yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that has read this and an extra thank you to everyone who also subscribed, left a comment or kudos, or bookmarked it. I appreciate you all so much!
> 
> If you want, feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://ifmywishescametrue.tumblr.com/) :)


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